How To Avoid The Agony When Buying Your First Telescope

Buying your first telescope can quickly become a daunting task when faced with so many choices and unfamiliar terms. With everything from cheap department store telescopes to computerized models and specialized APO refractors, how do you choose something you’ll be able to enjoy for years with without spending a fortune?

If you are like me, when it comes to buying something like a telescope, you want to do your research to make sure you purchase something you’ll be happy with. I spent several months researching what telescope to buy, and I really didn’t find most of the “how to choose your first telescope” articles out there all that helpful. Hopefully this article simplifies the process a bit for you.

Some questions you want to consider when shopping for your first telescope:

How far will you need to move the telescope to setup and use it?

What do you want to look at? The moon, planets, bright nebula, double-stars, galaxies?

How much do you want to spend?

Do you want to do visual observing or astrophotography?

The sections below should help you think through some of those questions and narrow down your choices.

Price

The adage “you get what you pay for” has an interesting application with telescopes. It isn’t a linear value curve; rather it tends to be more of a bell shape. Spend too little, and you wind up with something like the red Tasco telescope I got as a kid that was really only good for looking at the moon and taking up a dusty corner of the garage. At the same time, you don’t need to spend a fortune to get a telescope that will bring you years of enjoyment.

Just keep in mind that you are buying a precision optical instrument, and quality convex lenses and concave mirrors are difficult to make, so when you see a shiny $100 telescope with a whole set of eyepieces and a tripod, you can be pretty sure there were a lot of sacrifices made that will leave you disappointed with the view you get through it. At the same time, you don’t need to spend thousands on professional quality gear, unless of course you want to start hunting for undiscovered asteroids.

So how much should you spend? That’s a question you need to answer for yourself based on what you can spend and how much enjoyment you expect to get out of observing the universe. In general, expect to spend $300 at the bottom end for a quality instrument, and up to about $2000 for a large aperture computerized scope. If your interest is astrophotography, you can find good options across that range, depending on what you want to image. More on that later.

Types of Telescopes

Here’s a helpful analogy: Think of buying a telescope like buying your mode of transportation to the cosmos. That cheap department store telescope that also comes bundled with a microscope? Think of that as being like a little Razor scooter: It won’t get you very far, it’s more than a little shaky, and will probably fall apart after a few weeks.

Taking a step up, you have the basic Refractor and Newtonian scopes on manual alt-azimuth mounts in the $100-$200 range. These are like Bicycles: You can go a lot further than a Razor scooter, but you still can’t go down the freeway. Incidentally, anything with a computerized mount in that $200 price range is likely going to have relatively poor optics, so don’t be tempted. These scopes may seem like a bargain at first, but chances are they’ll only get used a couple of times before going into the basement.

Once we get past the cruft, there are 4 different types of telescopes of note for serious beginner and intermediate astronomers: Refractors, Newtonians, Dobsonians, and Schmidt-Cassegrains. These telescopes are like cars: You can take them a long distance, and you have a lot of choices concerning your type of vehicle. Now you need to decide if you want a basic sedan, a sports car, a minivan, a pickup truck, or an SUV.

Refractors, The Sedans and Sports Cars

These are the Galileo type telescopes that refract light through a series of glass lenses. Prices range from department store specials up to thousands of dollars for advanced and custom-made instruments. Refractors are good general-purpose telescopes for viewing the moon and bright neighbor planets like Jupiter and Saturn, as well as larger deep sky objects like the Orion Nebula and the Andromeda Galaxy.

One limitation common to refractors in the lower price bracket is Chromatic Aberration. You can think of this simply as color fringing and blurring of the object. This happens because the different frequencies of light (the rainbow of colors) don’t all refract exactly the same. Just think of sunlight through a prism where you see a rainbow effect. The same applies to refracting light through the lenses of a telescope. This is going to be more pronounced with bright objects like the moon and planets, but not generally noticeable with dimmer stars. As prices go up in this category, it’s primarily attributable to aperture (the diameter of the primary lens) and perfecting the optics to reduce the Chromatic Aberration. You can actually get refractors called Apochromatics, or APOs that have effectively no chromatic aberration and are excellent for wide-field astrophotography, but the prices for these scopes start at around $700 for just the telescope body.

Pros:

Good general-purpose telescopes

Wide Field Views

Cons:

Above about 100mm, very high cost per inch of aperture.

Prone to chromatic aberration

Notes:

Watch of out very poor optical quality with cheap scopes.

Newtonian Reflectors, The MiniVans

Newtonian telescopes use a large primary mirror instead of lenses. The mirror sits at the back of the scope, and reflects and focuses the light back up toward the top, where it reflects again off an angled secondary mirror and out to the eye piece on the side of the telescope body. The Hubble is a variation of a Newtonian reflector, as are most professional instruments today. Typically a Newtonian will use a german equatorial mount, which balances the weight of the telescope tube with a counterweight. This makes Newtonians a little more complex to operate for the beginner. Higher end Newtonians on computerized equatorial mounts can make very good astrophotography scopes. Some models also have table-top alt-azimuth stands, but this limits where you can use the telescope comfortably. Fortunately, there’s another type of stand called a Dobsonian.

Dobsonians, The Pickup Trucks

Affectionately referred to as light buckets, Dobsonians unquestionably give you the most bang for the buck for visual observing. These are basic, simple workhorse newtonian telescopes. The name Dobsonian really just refers to the mount or base that the optical tube rides on. The design does away with the tripod and complex equatorial counterweight system and gives you straightforward left-right, up-down points of rotation. The simplicity of the design means these scopes are cheap to manufacture, easy to setup, and all around great instruments for visual observing. If you want to see deep sky objects on a budget, this is the scope for you. An 8″ Dobsonian can be had for under $400.

Pros:

Best value per inch of aperture

Excellent for visual observing of planets and deep space objects

Simple setup

Cons:

Not well suited to astrophotography, except for short exposure planetary imaging.

Bulky tubes and bases can be awkward to transport and store.

Notes:

Some Dobsonians also offer Goto computers to help you find and track objects. It’s up to you to decide if this feature is worth the added cost (typically about $200).

Schmidt-Cassegrains, The SUVs

You can think of Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescopes (called SCTs) as combining some of the features of a Refractor and a Dobsonian. While not technically accurate, I think of an SCT as a very short Newtonian with a large lens at the front and the objective pointing straight out the back, making it look like a short, fat refractor. SCTs are ideally suited for planetary observing and some of the smaller deep space objects. They are also a great scope for photography. The field of view is narrower than most refractors or newtonians at about 30′, or 1/2º. SCTs are the most compact and lightweight scopes at larger apertures, but they are notably more expensive than Newtonians.

Pros:

Better value per inch of aperture than refractors above 100mm

Excellent for Astrophotography

Smallest physical size for the largest aperture

Cons:

More expensive than Newtonian/Dobsonian telescopes for the same aperture

Notes:

Generally narrower field of view than other types of scopes

Size vs. Portability

When shopping for your first telescope, once you’ve gotten past the cheap department store offerings (we’ll get to those in a moment), it can be easy to get carried away with aperture fever. Aperture simply refers to the diameter of the primary lens or mirror of the telescope, typically measured in millimeters or inches. The larger the aperture of the telescope, the more light gathering power it has, which allows you to see fainter objects and more detail in brighter objects. To see those dimmer messier objects and distant galaxies, an 8” (200mm) aperture is about the minimum. So, to get the best views, you want the most aperture you can afford… except for when you don’t.

Larger aperture telescopes are, well, bigger and consequently heavier and bulkier. Before you pick a telescope, think carefully about where and how you will want to use your telescope, and where you’ll be storing it. If you live on a 7th floor apartment with no elevator, trying to move a large and heavy telescope will probably quickly start to seem like more trouble than it’s worth. A telescope that lets you see the faintest of objects isn’t any good if you don’t want to use it. In this case, you’re much better off with a smaller telescope that’s easily portable. On the other hand if you plan to keep your telescope in the garage and move it no further than the driveway to use, you can definitely consider a much larger scope.

Be mindful that many telescopes are actually physically larger in real life than you might think they are looking at pictures online. If possible, it’s always a good idea to look at a telescope in person. Better yet, look through several at a local star party.

Ignore Magnification

Department store telescopes will often advertise magnifying power – something like “200x” or “400x”. If you see a telescope advertising this, walk away. Magnifying power is a marketing gimmick for low-quality instruments. This is because you can put a “high power” eyepiece on basically any telescope and get a ridiculously high magnification power, but unless the telescope has a large enough aperture and quality optics to support that magnification, you won’t be able to get a sharp image. That “high power” eyepiece itself is probably also going to be very optically poor.

A simple rule of thumb is the maximum useful magnification of a telescope is going to be the aperture in millimeters multiplied by 2. (If the aperture is listed in inches, multiply the aperture by 50). There is however an upper limit of about 300x. Even if you have a 12″ aperture telescope, due to atmospheric conditions the maximum useful magnification is about 300x, and that’s on a good night with little air turbulence.

Astrophotography

If you want to explore astrophotography, there are a few additional considerations.

Basic DSLRs, particularly models a year or two old like the Canon EOS Rebel T5 start around $400-500, but you can find recent models used or refurbished as low as about $300. Specific models to consider would be the Canon EOS Rebel T5i or the just announced Canon EOS Rebel T6s. These and similar DSLR cameras can be easily connected to a telescope with inexpensive adapters. Plus, you get a great quality general purpose DSLR camera for daytime use.

Telescopes & Mounts

If you plan to take long exposure photos (and if you want to photograph deep space objects, you need to) then you should seriously consider purchasing a telescope with a computerized German Equatorial Mount. GEMs as they are often called use a counterweight system to balance the telescope, with one axis adjusted to match your latitude. This somewhat increases the complexity of use and raises the entry price, but there are two good reasons to spend a bit more here. First, a computerized GEM will track an object along a single axis as the earth rotates. This creates smoother tracking than an alt-az mount that has to constantly adjust both axis. Second, an EQ mount rotates the scope in sync with the sky as it tracks. Using an alt-az mount, you’ll discover that two photos of the same object taken an hour apart will be rotated in the frames. You can correct for this in post-processing, but if you are serious about doing astrophotography with your telescope, an EQ mount is worth the extra cost and effort. Celestron has great astrophotography starter telescopes in their new VX line, specifically the Celestron Advanced VX 6″ Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope. (This is effectively a newer model of the same telescope and mount I own.)

Final Thoughts

Ideally you want to get a feel for different types of telescopes for yourself before you buy. Star Parties are probably the best way to do this. Check out the Night Sky Network sponsored by NASA to find an astronomy club near you. Almost every astronomy club hosts public star parties where you can have a chance to look through a number of different scopes and ask questions of other amateur astronomers.

Other information you’d like to see? Have a different view? Please leave a comment!

145 Responses to "How To Avoid The Agony When Buying Your First Telescope"

Hi! I’m looking for an advice on which type of telescope to buy for better view of deep-sky objects. I understand aperture is the most important thing to consider, but I can’t get a clear anwser anywhere on which type of telescope would be better. I’ve decided to completely ignore the portability of the scope and I wouldn’t like to spent too much money but right now I would just like to know where is my starting point so some advice would be great 🙂

Jane, if you’re looking at the best views of DSOs, then the name of the game is aperture. Since you’re not to concerned by portability but are concerned with price, the answer is a dobsonian telescope. An 8″ or 10″, or, if you can afford it, a 12″ dob would be what you’re looking for. Have a look at the Apertura dobs in these three sizes, which are being sold by High Point Scientific as the Apertura AD8, AD10, and AD12. Both cheap and good.

Hi, i can’t choose between Sky Watcher Star Discovery 150p (6 inch with goto) cost €500 or
Orion Xt8 (8inch without goto) cost €350.
I want to look at DSO and some planets but im worried that i can’t find galaxies with orion because where i live in there is heavy light pollution so star hopping next to impossible.
So is 50mm diameter difference alot for galaxies like m31,m104,m51?

A rough calculation shows that an 8″ mirror has about 78% more light gathering than a 6″. Light gathering is everything for DSO.

But that GOTO is a big factor to consider if you are in a light polluted sky, where your star hopping skills will be tested to the max! A good 50mm finder is paramount for star hopping. Those new, silly laser pointer finders simply will not do!

Steve – always remember that the light does not see brightness in a linear fashion – like our ears, as well. For example, with our ears, every 10 decibels means 10x the amount of sound. But a conversation in a restaurant at 60 dB doesn’t sound 10x as loud as the “silence” you hear when you walk outside your house in the suburbs.

Light is the same – we do not observe light linearly, but logarithmically. The difference in brightness between a first magnitude star and a sixth magnitude one is 100x; a 2 magnitude difference is about a 6x difference = 600%.

An easy example is Orion. Rigel is the lower right in Orion – his left knee (on the right side as we look at him). Mintaka is the star on the right side of his belt. There is a 2 magnitude difference between the two. Think about the last time you looked at Orion (which you can do very late at night tonight, if you like). Did Rigel really look 6x brigher than Mintaka? No.

That’s why expressing a difference in light-gathering capacity in terms of percent, like you did with 78%, isn’t very meaningful. Expressing it in terms of the difference in magnitude is meaningful.

Hi, Alper. Since I was in your position looking for a telescope in Manhattan, the light-pollution capital of the universe, let me answer your question.

Obviously, aperture matters. The extra two inches from 6 to 8 will let you go from magnitude 12.9 to magnitude 13.5 visually. Six-tenths of a magnitude is definitely significant. You will be able to see dimmer things that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise, and more importantly, dim objects that you could see in the 6 will be a bit brighter. I can’t say exactly how much, as I’ve never done a side-by-side comparison.

BUT – being able to find and see the objects in the first place is more important. Under bad light pollution, starhopping becomes very difficult. Yes, it can be fun, the thrill of the hunt, the reward of finding it, but to my mind, it’s going from finding and observing 5 objects in an hour to just observing a dozen or more. We all have limited time for our hobbies – goto makes better use of that time.

Hi Jon and Sorin. I wanting to buy a 5 year old a goto telescope with a camera so she can take pictures. I really don’t want to go over $450. I’m just not sure what to get her beacuse I want her to have the best experience possible. She loves the sky and I don’t want to disappoint her. Any help would be most appreciated.
Thank you
Amy

That’s a tall order, especially for a 5 year old. Do you have any experience with goto telescopes? If not, find your local astronomical society and get some hands on experience. Many of these groups also have loaner programs for members so you can try out a telescope before you buy one. For photography that a 5 year old could do, probably the best thing is just using an iPhone or tablet through the eyepiece to get pictures of the moon, and maybe Jupiter and Saturn. That doesn’t need a GoTo, and can even be done with a little dobsonian that she could move herself (after a little instruction). Many people buy a goto thinking it will be really easy and they don’t need to learn the sky at all. Too many people wind up just being frustrated with them. It can be much easier to start with a manual dobsonian and learn the sky a bit before moving on to a goto, particularly in a sub-$500 price range.
To reiterate, find your local astronomy club first. Most clubs will be thrilled to have an engaged young member, and many people will be happy to help!

Amy, let me just throw this out there as well. My opinion, as both a parent, and as someone who has done outreach for very little kids: five is just too young. To do what you want to do here, it really is. It is hard for them to figure out how to look through the scope, and to fully understand that the telescope is magnifying what their eyes can’t see themselves. It’s hard for them to “get it” until they’re older.

But you can encourage her interest in other ways. Buy a planisphere so both of you can learn the sky:

Hi Jon. The flash cards sounds great. Like I said that I don’t want her disappointed nor to struggle with a telescope. I will wait until she’s a little order which will give me more time to save more money to buy her what she needs to do all this.
Thank you all so much.

Hi Amy,
One other resource to mention: I just published a family oriented guide to the August 21 total solar eclipse, which includes some activities that would be appropriate (like learning the phases of the Moon with Oreo cookies). The whole continental U.S. will get at least a partial eclipse on August 21, so this would be a great astronomy related activity! You can find my eclipse guide along with full “Eclipse Kits” at https://eclipsekit.com

Great article, learning so much. However, still just not quite sure. I’m a beginner to this field though admittedly I already love it. Want my kids to get interested as well.

I would love to get into astrophotgraphy but need a fairly self guiding scope. I live in a city with light pollution (boo) and probably will do a lot of viewing from there however we still do get some very clear winter skies. I was thinking about getting the Celestron NexStar 6SE 150mm f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain GoTo Telescope (link below) with the power and some other accessories but just not sure if I’ll be happy with this today as a beginner and 10 years down the road as maybe more of an expert. Also, should I future proof the scope and my love of astronomy by getting the 8″ instead? Is this scope too advanced or too “basic”? Any thoughts and help are greatly appreciated!!

Hi Ben,
I know one person who is quite happily using a 6SE for video astronomy. It’s a nice, fairly compact and light weight package that’s best suited to visual astronomy, but can be used for basic astrophotography, too. I use the same optical tube (the 6″ SCT) when I do astronomy outreach, and it’s what I started out doing astrophotography with, though on a CG-5 equatorial mount vs the alt-az SE mount. If you don’t intent to go out to darker skies, then it will probably be satisfactory from an astrophotography perspective, as you’ll hit the limitation of sky glow before you run into the tracking and guiding limitations of the alt-az mount. That said, it should work fine for photographing planets and brighter nebula and galaxies, to the limit of what you can do from urban skies. I’d say the 6SE is a bargain right now, and only you and your budget can decide if the 8″ is worth the extra $300. For whatever it’s worth, five years in, my largest aperture scope is still a 6″. Can you see more with an 8″? Yes, sure, but you’ll see even more if you make the trek to darker skies, and maybe a slightly lighter 6″ scope makes that idea more appealing.

and the 6SE was definitely one of our choices. You raise a lot of interesting issues. I’ll start with the easy ones.

First off – the 6SE (or the 8SE, for that matter) are very easy to use. I have the same handset they use on my scope (the 127SLT), and I only needed the manual the first night, and put it away ever since. The handset is intuitive after that. Yes, there are some features buried deep in the menus that you’ll need the manual to access, but for normal use, it’s all very easy. And the mounts work well at finding and tracking DSOs (deep sky objects – galaxies, nebula, clusters, etc.)

Next, however, is that neither of those two scopes is designed for astrophotography (AP). Yes, you can do some AP with them, but they are not ideally designed for it. This is because the SE is an alt/az mount. It tracks the sky differently (up, and to the right, up and to the right) than how the sky actually moves (in a giant circle around either Polaris or the South Celestial Pole). This leads to a phenomenon known as field rotation in the photographs – think of Saturn’s rings starting out as being horizontal, but becoming more and more vertical as it moves through the sky. Image processing software can deal with some of this – I think; I’m not a real expert on AP. That’s more Sorin’s bag. In any case, you would be able to do some limited AP – of the moon, planets, some of the brigher DSOs, but not long exposure (faint) stuff. My understanding is that with an alt-az mount like this, you’re limiting yourself to short exposures of about a minute or so. But I don’t do AP, so take that with a grain of salt.

You also seem to be teetering between visual and AP. They are almost like two entirely different hobbies, and AP is by far the more expensive of the two. For visual, you want to get the largest scope you can both afford and handle. So yeah, getting a 6″ scope might leave you kicking yourself and saying that you should have gotten the 8. For many, the 8 (of whatever kind of scope you get) is a lifetime scope – meaning it has enough aperture to show you (visually) a lot of DSOs. As for weight, the ability to handle the scope, the 6SE and 8SE are both roughly the same, so you shouldn’t have any problems there.

However, if you want to future-proof your purchase, that’ll cost ya. Such is the nature of future-proofing, though, right? Take a look at either of these two scopes and mount instead:

Either of these scopes will do what you want to do. They are both on the AVX mount. Sorin can tell you more, but from what I’ve read (and I read a lot), the AVX is a good intro mount to do AP with. The AVX mount is an EQ mount – meaning that it does track the sky the same way the sky moves. No field rotation.

If either of those is too expensive, take a look at the 6-inch on the AVX instead:

But actually, the point of AP is not so much to get the biggest scope. AP is all about the mount – get the nicest mount you can afford. Most of the gorgeous astro-photos you see are taken by small refractors – 66mm, 70mm, 80mm, and the like. Generally 4 inches (102mm) and under. But these refractors are pretty exquisite. They’re called apochromats; instead of 2 lenses in front (achromat), they have 3 to give much, much better color correction. And with that third lens comes a huge jump in price.

What people do is that they get one of these little refractors and put them on a nice beefy mount – like the AVX, or even mounts that cost two and three times as much – and take longer exposures, but with better quality. Plus, the fact that the refractor weighs so little – as compared to a 6″ or 8″ scope – means that the mount works better, tracks better, and gives you a better result. You can take exposures hours long with a setup like that.

On the other hand if you were to get the 8″ SCT on the AVX mount, you could also purchase something called a field reducer/flattener to make your exposure times shorter:

This is a system that is supposed to be everything you need in one box. But I would think that with that lower cost, there is a decrease in quality. However, a guy I know through these intertube thingies who lived near me in Manhattan (the world’s worst light pollution) used a system very similar to this to get photos of the central star of the Ring Nebula (M57) which is VERY faint – 14th magnitude. And he was able to do it through the godawful light pollution of Manhattan, just two miles from Times Square and Broadway. So, that’s another way to go.

To end off, I think you should start off with visual first; get either of the two 8″ scopes on the AVX mount. That will give you both the aperture you need for visual, plus the ability to do good AP.

Okay, I have read and researched until my head hurts. I came across this article and it is very informative. I have always enjoyed astronomy and would like to get my kids(11 & 14) interested as well. We have gone through the junk scopes and are now looking to buy one that is good, but will not break the bank. I am looking at the Orion 09007 SpacePrope. I would appreciate your thoughts and suggestions on this model or if you have any other suggestions for one in the $300-400 range would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Hi, Jim. That Orion SpaceProbe is a decent scope. However, an equatorial mount like that really isn’t necessary in a scope that isn’t going to be used for astrophotography. And particularly, since that mount isn’t motorized, you actually CAN’T do AP with it. So instead of spending your money on a mount that won’t really help you too much, why not spend it on better, i.e., bigger optics?

Since you’ve already passed by the junk scopes, and have done research, I presume you already know about collimation and are okay with it. If you don’t, collimation is the act of getting all of the optical components of the scope in perfect alignment with each other. On any newtonian reflector scope, like the SpaceProbe, you have to do it every few months, or even every few weeks, depending on how you use your scope. You can watch a couple of YouTube videos on it to see if collimation is really for you.

So, moving up from that scope, how about Orion’s 6-inch dob? The classic XT6 sells for $279, the same as the SpaceProbe, while the “kit” version, which has some extra goodies, is just $20 more. The dob mount is inherently stable due to its very low center of gravity, and is dead easy to use – much easier to use than the SpaceProbe’s EQ mount. You just point a dob wherever you want to look, and that’s it. You sometimes have to struggle with an EQ mount to get it to point where you want it to. Or better yet, you could go directly to the XT8, the 8-inch dob, for $389, still within your budget. Let me throw another scope out there in this same category, the Zhumell Z8, also an 8-inch dob, for $399. The Zhumell is a better-built scope, with a cooling fan, adjustable azimuth bearings, a laser collimator, and two eyepieces instead of the one you get with the XT8. Read up on these scopes, and then come back and ask about them.

Thanks a bunch for you recommendations. I am familiar with collimation and understand the difficulties associated with reflections scopes. My only concern with a dob scope is the size and space needed to store them. Also do the have a motorized tracking ability? What are you thoughts on computerized scopes like Celestron NexStar 130 SLT Computerized Telescope or Orion 27191 StarBlast 6i IntelliScope Reflector Telescope. I know they are a bit over the budget, bu I would rather talk the boss into spending the extra money on something that will last and not have to upgrade. 500 would definitely be max! lol. As I stated b4 I fully understand the increased optics that a dob scope offers it is just that they seem very bulky. Thoughts?

Good that you’re up to speed on collimation. Let me take the second question first. The dob is big, but it’s still pretty portable. I started observing almost 40 years ago when I was 13 with a 6-inch scope that was much heavier than a 6 or 8-inch dob, and my name is definitely not Ah-nold. Your kids will be able to handle the weight – the dob breaks down into the tube and the mount, so it’s not too bulky to move around. Yes, a dob does take up a lot of room – like a small water heater – but it’s not really that much more room than the SpaceProbe you were looking at.

More importantly, an 8-inch dob can be a lifetime scope. The name of the game in scopes is aperture, and 8 inches can show you significantly more than a 5-inch scope. If you want a scope that you won’t have to upgrade from, an 8-inch dob would be the right choice. It can show you hundreds of objects.

To your 1st point – I am ALL in favor of computerization. With the SpaceProbe or a dob, you have to find the objects you want to look at by starhopping. It is rewarding, like, fishing or hunting and finally bagging your prey – but it obviously takes a long time. Longer than having a computerized mount find the object for you. Both of those scopes (the 130 and the 6i) are good ones. The 130 is motorized, and will find the objects for you – it can’t be easier. It’s like GPS for the sky. With the 6i, you are the motor. The handset sort of says, “A little more to the left; a little more; oops, too far, come back to the right.” It does this with numbers as to how close you are. But it’s a tradeoff. You can see with the price of the 6i, you’re spending about $200 towards that computerization for the same aperture. I have a computerized scope, and I love it – but I’m observing from heavily light-polluted skies, so I need that extra help.

Okay Jon first of all you are a great help and I greatly appreciate it and by golly I think I am now convinced to go with a dob scope. I like the idea of going with better optics. I live in northern MN near the CN border and there is no light pollution. Would you anticipate any problems viewing in extreme cold? also are the dob scopes fairly easy to adjust to moving objects? I see that Amazon has the Orion 8974 SkyQuest XT8 PLUS Dobsonian Reflector Telescope for 499.

That’s fine, Jim. You could get the XT8 Plus and that would work out great for you. And starhopping will be a lot easier under very dark skies like you have. Even better, now that we’re in the middle of the holiday season, Amazon usually extends the return period from the regular 30 days all the way until January 31. Check that out. Amazon’s customer service is amazing. I had a problem with my scope, and even before I returned it, they had sent me a new one by 2-day air. Sweet!

But I still want to get you to take a look at the Zhumell Z8 for $399 instead, and use the extra $100 to buy additional eyepieces, accessories. Okay, so you’ve never heard of Zhumell, while Orion is a known brand. The thing about all consumer-level scopes is that they’re all made in about three factories in China/Taiwan, and then slapped with different labels. Celestron, Skywatcher, and Orion are all separate companies, but all of their stuff is all made in the same Synta factory in China. Zhumell’s stuff is made in the GSO factory in Taiwan. At this level, the equipment is very interchangeable, and all the same quality – very good.

As for cold, this is where the Zhumell will smoke the Orion. There isn’t a problem observing in the cold per se, but there is a problem observing when there is a temperature differential between the scope and the outside; particularly, between the temperature of the mirror and the outside. When that happens, warmer air rises off the mirror and creates a layer of bad seeing that will give you inferior views until the temperature equilibrium is reached. Think of how you can see the heat rising off of a black tar road under the summer sun. This occurs all the time, but is usually invisible to our eyes. The Zhumell specifically has a fan attached to it to allow this temperature equilibrium to occur in half the time (or less) as without it.

Hi Jim,
I’m in agreement with Jon’s advice here. It sounds like the question you really need to answer first is if you want a computerized telescope, or want to learn the sky to star hop. If you are good with star hopping, I think it’s hard to go wrong with a Dob. They are a little bulky, but they are also much faster to setup and use. In terms of storage, I think they can actually take up the same or less space than a telescope with a tripod. The advice at the end of the article still applies though – now that you have some ideas, find your local astronomy club and see some scopes in action if you can! That will give you a much better idea of what will work for you and what won’t.

Thanks for the advice. An astronomy club is a great idea, but I live near a small town and pretty much in the middle of nowhere. That is one reason I was leaning towards a computerized scope to help smooth out the learning curve. I am pretty much a novice when it comes to star hoping, but also a quick learner.

Compare and contrast this scope with the Orion XT8, feature for feature. Or the XT8 Plus. I had a nice look at and through the Z8 last month at an outreach event that my local astronomy club was putting on, and it’s a sweet scope. There is no difference in quality between the two scopes; it just comes down to the features.

Hi Jon, sorry to butt in here but I am also in the market for a telescope. This is for Christmas for my husband. I would say he is a little better than a beginner. We also live near the Canadian border in Minnesota in moose country. We have a larger deck so I am wondering what would be the best scope for us. Not necessarily looking for anything computerized but something good to be able to see the moon and planets as well as we can. Not wanting to spend more than $600. I have read so much and am totally confused. It seems that the dobs (I think that’s right) have to be placed on a table or something where the others are on a tripod type stand. Since we have a large deck I’m thinking a stand scope would be better? We have 11 grandkids and when the older kids come up for a visit they love sitting outside with grandpa stargazing. Thanks. Janice

Hi, Janice. First off, let me just say that this isn’t my blog post; it’s Sorin’s. I just lurk around here because I like to help people, and I think Sorin lets me because we’re pretty simpatico in terms of our telescope-recommending philosophies. That being said, that part about the dobs needing to be placed on the table only applies to that one mini-dob, the Astronomers Without Borders One Sky scope (for $200). The AWB is literally only 25 inches long, so, yeah, you have to put it on a table – or you can lie down with it in the snow. But other dobs are much bigger than the AWB. For your $600, you could get what has now become the classic introductory dob – the 8-inch. For many people, an 8-inch dob is a lifetime scope, meaning it can show you literally hundreds of deep space objects (DSOs), so that you’ll never need to buy a larger scope. Plus you would still have money left over for additional accessories, like eyepieces, a star atlas, a red light flashlight, etc.

But before we go on discussing dobs, I do want to make sure you’re okay with collimation. Collimation is the act of getting all of the optical components of the scope in perfect alignment with each other. Go watch a couple of videos on YouTube about collimation and see if it’s something you a) can do, and b) want to do. Because you will have to collimate a dob every few months, or even every few weeks, depending on how you use your scope. Collimating a dob is not supposed to be too hard; some liken the difficulty to that of stringing and tuning a guitar. But there is no job called “collimator” where they come out to your house and do it for you. You have to do it yourself. I don’t want to scare you off of a dob; if you watch the videos and say, “Eh, collimation is no big deal,” then great! A dob could be the right scope for you.

I want to point you in the direction of two 8-inch dobs, and let you compare and contrast them. The first is the Orion XT8 Classic, for $389, and the second is the Zhumell Z8 for $399.

So, looking at these, you might think, “Jeez, it looks like it’s the size of a water heater.” Well, yeah, but a small water heater, and much, much lighter. The Z8 weighs 54 lbs.; the XT8 weighs 41 pounds. But more importantly, they break down into two components, the tube and the base, so that the weight you’re carrying at any one time is really half of that, about 27 for the Z8, and 21 for the XT8. So it’s still pretty portable.

My recommendation is for the Zhumell, because it is better built, and has more features than the Orion. The most important feature is very important for your climate – the primary mirror fan. You will probably be storing your scope inside. And in the northern reaches of Minnesota, there will be a huge temperature differential between the outside air and the primary mirror of your scope. You can leave , unless you leave the scope outside all the time so that the mirror is already always acclimated. Why this is important is because when there’s a temp diff between the two, a mass of warmer air rises off of the front of the primary mirror and creates a layer of unstable air on top of it. This greatly lessens the optical quality, the detail you can see. This is exactly like looking at the shimmering hot air rising off of a black tar road in summer. The primary mirror fan moves this air and helps the mirror acclimate in less than half the time it would normally take to acclimate, which depends on the temp diff between outside and inside. You might have to leave that Orion out in the cold for more than an hour before the mirror acclimates; with the fan, the Zhumell will be acclimated in less than a half an hour.

In addition to that primary mirror fan, Zhumell also gives you two eyepieces to Orion’s one; they give you a collimation laser; the focuser is better – the Zhumell focuser is dual-speed, allowing fine adjustments to get the focus just right; and it has an 8×50 finderscope instead of Orion’s red-dot finder. This last is very important because in order for you to be able to find those hundreds of DSOs that an 8-inch scope can show you, you have to get to the right star field. With a red-dot finder, it just projects a red dot onto the sky – and stars – that you can already see with your eyes. But the finderscope shows you lots and lots of fainter stars that you simply can’t see with your eyes. If you have a good star atlas (one that also shows stars that your eyes can’t see), this makes finding the DSO you’re looking for much, much easier.

If you have any concerns because you’ve heard of Orion, but “Zhumell? Who the heck are they?”, then don’t. Almost all consumer-grade scopes are made in just about 3 factories in China/Taiwan, and then they paint the scopes different colors, slap different labels onto them, and different companies sell them. Celestron/Orion/Skywatcher scopes are all made in the same factory, called Synta, in China, even though those three are totally different companies. These Zhumell scopes are made by at a factory in Taiwan called GSO. Even Orion sells these GSO scopes (for a LOT more money) under their Skyline series. More to the point, all of these scopes, both Synta and GSO, are very well made, so, there’s no need to be worried about that.

Thank you so much. I’ve watched many you tube videos and searched the internet. I think I’m going to go with your suggestions. We have a large deck facing the lake and have a great spot for it. I think my husband will be very happy with this choice. Thanks again.

I need help! Trying to do afocal astrophotography through my etx Astro scope 90mm aperture 1250 focal length, no matter how close or Far I place it, or focus it, I’m only seeing about 1/4 of the target like the moon, it’s like the view is cropped circularly. Same issue regardless of zoom level. Tried playing with focus and others, no change. Even took off the rubber eye guard to try and test a closer distance to the eyepiece, a 26mm super plosi. Ive played with angles too. There is a photo port for t mounting as well, purttng the camera anywhere near that hole after flipping the mirror down (as it says to be able to see) just yields a picture of the inside of the telescope tube complete with center lens blackout and rods connected to Inside the tube. Basically seeing the inner mechanisms rather than unobstructed object. Cam focus moon for example, but the inner mechanisms are still blocking the object. What is going on?

I am looking to buy a good telescope but live in the British Virgin Islands where the air is full of salt. I was looking at a Celestronbrass one but am concerned it will tarnish. Any thoughts and advice?

Hi, Sara. I don’t know the answer to your question, as I don’t know how brass interacts with salt air. But while there is nothing wrong with those brass scopes, are you aware that they’re mostly for decoration? What I mean is, yes, they work okay as actual scopes, but most of the money you are spending on them is for their good looks, not for their functionality. The 50mm scope is $400, and the 80mm scope is $900. These scopes don’t come with any special “sea coatings” or “salt-resistant coatings” for those prices – they have the same optics you’d find in a regular, non-brass 50mm or 80mm refractor. And while the 80mm could be a “good telescope”, the 50mm is just too small and too limited with its 15-45x zoom to be a good scope.
For just $200, you could get a much larger, much more capable scope – the Meade Infinity 102, a 102mm (4-inch) refractor. If you look through the other comments here, you’ll find me coming back to that scope time and time again as my recommendation for beginners. For $200 you could also get the Astronomers Without Borders One Sky dobsonian, a 130mm (5.1″) reflector scope. Either of these two scopes would show you TONS more than either of those two brass scopes, especially the 50mm model.
For $400, you could get an 8-inch dobsonian that would blow away all of the refractors. Of course, you would have to collimate it, which is periodic maintenance that needs to be done to reflecting telescopes. For $900 you could get a gigantic 12-inch dobsonian, or even an 8-inch SCT, the Celestron 8SE, which would be completely motorized to find the objects for you by pressing some buttons on a computer handset. On the other hand, if the beauty of the scope in your home is the important factor, then either of these two brass scopes will be gorgeous. Maybe not the best scopes to look through, but certainly the best to look at.

Most, if not all, new brass (replica) telescopes are heavily coated in a clear polyurethane finish, so that they should be pretty much immune from the salt air. But it wouldn’t hurt to give it a nice protective coat of car wax and keep the instrument dusted frequently. Keeping the surface free of dirt and dust will go a long way in keeping the original finish intact.

Also, keep an eye on the object glass. Always keep it capped when not in use. Get a special Camel’s hair lens brush espressly to remove any dust from the lens. A good quality liquid lens cleaner should also be kept on hand for occasional cleaning. But DO NOT over clean a lens, It is better left alone when in doubt. A lens can be easily scratched by overzealous cleaning.

Thanks, Steve. I meant to say that the optics aren’t specially coated for sea use. Like I said, I don’t know anything about the brass itself.

And I agree with Steve – it’s always better NOT to clean a lens than to clean it. Cleaning a lens will lead to microscratches on it that will affect the image seen.

The most important thing is NEVER to look at a lens in daylight. Not because the interaction of the lens and sun will somehow hurt your eyes – that will only happen if you look through a scope at the sun without a proper solar filter – but because you’ll see all sorts of dirt on the lens that otherwise can’t be seen and won’t affect your view that you will now desperately feel the need to clean. Don’t do it!

Hey, I’m a teen who’s looking for a decent telescope to just casually look at different objects in the sky. I would be looking at the sky from my cabin, which has little light pollution, and has quite good visibility (at least compared to my home in the suburbs by the city.) I have decided that I would prefer a refractor telescope because, for me, has a better look to it and can be used as a nice element inside my cabin next to a window. My budget is about $200 but no more than $300. I was wondering what would be some reputable brands (or specific telescopes), that carry decent cheap refractor telescopes with an equatorial mount (seems like an overal better mount) and preferably a small scope to aim it since I don’t know the map of the sky all that well. For my circumstance I don’t need to move it that far to get it outside, but I do want it to look good inside my cabin. Since my inexperience, would a refractor telescope not be the right type for me? Also keep in mind that I do not plan on doing astrophotography and that I plan on using this for years to come, just on weekend nights. Or is my wants to much for the price?Thanks in advance!

Hey, Triston, welcome to what I hope will be a terrific hobby for you! In no particular order, Orion, Celestron, Meade, and Skywatcher are reputable brands. That being said, a couple of those brands do actually sell what we in the hobby call “department store” telescopes. These are the cheap scopes on shaky mounts that are terrible and will frustrate you. Celestron and Meade sell these, and the big box Marts carry them so they can say they sell everything, including telescopes.

If you look through other comments here, you’ll see that I recommend the Meade Infinity 102 refractor a lot. It meets all of your criteria but one. It is $200-odd dollars; it’s a quality scope; it looks darned good in that gorgeous shade of shiny deep blue. It doesn’t have an EQ mount, but you don’t need one, because EQ is only useful if you’re doing astrophotography. You can’t do AP at $200 anyway. AP requires a motor.

It’s on an alt-az mount, and it’s a decent one. Not great; but not a piece of junk either. The thing about alt-az mounts is that they go where you point them. Want to move it up and to the left? Just move it exactly that way. EQ mounts don’t move that way. It’s hard to describe, but they kind of fight you in the way they move around, because they move in circles, the way the sky moves.

The good thing about this alt-az mount is that it can be made to be a bit better than it is. Why do mounts wobble and shake? One reason (other than their being poorly made) is because they’re too light. One easy fix is to put a weight, like 5 or 8 pounds, on the accessory tray. Another is to not extend the legs out all the way, and to observe seated. The lower the scope is to the ground, the more stable it is.

do you know what a Newtonian 8″ Telescope is worth? Its 8 years old never been used just been taken out of the box. The gentleman tells me its to heavy for him to use now that he is older. Has computer capabilities.

http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Dobsonian-Telescopes/IntelliScope-Dobsonians/Orion-SkyQuest-XT8i-IntelliScope-Dobsonian-Telescope/pc/1/c/12/sc/27/p/102012.uts
As you can see, the scope is $660 new. You should pay no more than $600, and maybe less. The reason is because Orion does not assist third-party buyers, which in this case is you. That means that if anything goes wrong with the scope, you have no recourse with Orion, because you didn’t buy the scope directly from them. They will not assist you, the scope will not be under warranty, they will not provide you with spare parts. Because of that, you should not pay full price for the scope.
This is a very nice computerized – but not motorized – dob that will show you a ton. Let me explain that. Most scopes fall into one of two categories – either motorized or not. The motorized scopes will track an object as it moves through the sky, and almost all motorized scopes are also computerized, meaning that you press some buttons on a handset, and the scope will automatically go to that object, put it in the field of view of the telescope, and start tracking it. With non-motorized scopes, you have to do all that yourself.
This computerized scope is in-between. It has optical encoders – like on the bottom of your mouse – that track where the scope is pointed. The handset says, in effect, “A little to the left; a little more; a smidge more; oops, too far, come back to the right.” You are the motor. Still, it’s a very good scope optically.

Just be sure you know about collimation before purchasing it. Collimation is the act of getting all of the optical components of a telescope in perfect alignment with each other – the primary aligned with the secondary, and the secondary aligned with the focuser. If all three components aren’t aligned very well to each other, the quality of the image you see degrades.
Do yourself a favor, take 15 minutes, go to Youtube now, and take a look at a couple of videos on collimation. As you watch, ask yourself two questions: 1) “can I do this?” and 2) “do I want to do this?” Because if the answer to either of those questions is “no”, you should get a refractor instead. The Meade Infinity 102 is a good one, it’s about $200 at Amazon.
Collimation isn’t supposed to be too hard, unless you’re slightly dyslexic like I am when it comes to these things; and I get frustrated very easily. People liken collimation to being about as difficult as stringing and tuning your own guitar. But unlike, for example, piano tuners, there is no job called “collimator” where they come to your house and collimate your scope for you. You’ll have to do it yourself, every few months, or even every few weeks, depending on how you use the scope. Because I had no inclination or ability or patience to do this kind of maintenance on my scope, I bought a Maksutov-Cassegrain for myself instead. Your mileage may vary.
I’m not trying to scare you off of reflectors; I just want you to have full information before you buy one. On the other hand, if after watching a couple of collimation videos, you say, “Eh, that’s no big deal,” then congratulations! An 8″ dob is a great scope.

Hi Triston,
I agree with Jon that you probably don’t need or really want an equatorial mount – they have a learning curve, and most people find them confusing to start out with, particularly if you don’t plan to really learn the sky and how to orient an EQ mount. I don’t have very much experience with scopes in the price bracket you are targeting, but for a telescope, mount, and eye pieces, $200 generally puts you in the department store telescope category. A few exceptions to that are some of the small tabletop dobsonians. Since you prefer a refractor as an esthetic item, look for a reasonably sturdy tripod, and a mount with slow motion adjustment knobs. Viewing any celestial object gets frustrating if the telescope won’t stay steady or move smoothly. If you have a local astronomy club, make use of that resource for learning to use a scope and learning the sky. Many clubs also have telescope loaner programs for their members to borrow from an inventory of various telescope to try out for themselves before purchasing one of their own.

Thanks Jon and Sorin for a quick reply! I definitely will see about an astronomy club to go to a couple times. Also, thanks for telling me to stay clear of an equilateral mount, because many articles recommend it and I would have definitely have purchased one! But I’ve got only a couple more questions. The first is does each brand have their own stores or do they just supply other astronomy stores? Also, from what Sorin said about getting a good mount and tripod, should I buy each part separately or is it better to just get the whole package you see on their websites?

I must throw my hat into the ring for the Meade Infinity 102 AZ as well. The alt-azimuth mount has excellent slow motion controls. Off course, in astronomy, the “coin or the realm” is aperture. How much light a telescope can collect with its mirror or objective lens translates into seeing very dim objects and providing better resolution – the ability to discern detail. A 102mm, or 4″ refractor, is a fine choice that can offer decent views of deep sky objects like open cluster, globular clusters, nebulae, & etc. The refractor also is recommended for planetary and lunar work.

The greatest asset of a refractor is that the optics are are better protected from dewing up at night, staying more dust free, and if taken care of, will stay in proper alignment for years. A small refractor is also great for land observations as well. The Infinity also comes with 3 eyepieces and a 2x Barlow, so you are pretty much set for optics.

But do look into a Miller Planisphere to help you get a handle on the sky. Sky & Telescope has a wonderful pocket sky atlas that is spiral bound, on good card stock for more details. Stellarium is an excellent FREE program that you can download to your PC. It is very user friendly!

For the dollars you want to spend, the Infinity 102 is a great start into astronomy. But do shop for price. This looks like the best deal around for $219 and free shipping. http://www.bhphotovideo.com
B&H is an old and reputable company. That is where I purchased my 6″ AVX refractor a couple years ago.

Hi Triston, In your price range, you are best off buying a bundle. In terms of where to buy, B&H is a good source for Celestron and Meade (see the links on this site) as is Orion for the Orion brand telescopes. Amazon is also a fine source.

I just want to throw something out there about B&H. They are currently being sued by the US Department of Labor for discrimination against women and minorities – and this is far from the first time. This is the fourth time in the past 10 years, so they don’t seem to be learning. I didn’t know this when I last did business with them about a year ago, so I’ve moved onto other telescope vendors. Adorama is another good one; I’ve bought from them. Even Amazon is great. I had a problem with my scope when I first bought it from them. Since I was still within the 30-day return period, they sent me out a brand new scope even before I sent them back the one with a problem. Now that’s customer service!

Thanks everyone for the feedback. This definitely has narrowed down what I’m looking for. All those sources (except maybe B&H) sound excellent and I’m glad I can go and physically see different telescopes.

With all due respect, B&H is a great place to buy merchandise. No question, 30 day refunds, etc. I have shopped there often and have visited their store in NYC. Amazing place! And a great place to shop. Just because a business is sued, does not mean they did anything wrong. I recommend B&H highly. In fact, it is a top retailer.

Marc, as an attorney, I can tell you that in general, what you say is true. Anyone can file a civil suit. Anyone, or even multiple different groups of people, can file four different lawsuits. And it is possible that none of them have any basis whatsoever. However, when the federal government investigates you, then sues you, then it’s much more likely that something is going on.

And when B&H settles the last federal lawsuit against them for essentially the same accusations – disciminatory pay against Hispanic employyes – for FOUR MILLION THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS, then something is definitely going on. $4.3 million isn’t chump change. It’s not attorney’s fees. It represents the lost earning of those earnings because B&H discriminated. There is no other explanation; none. Read it and weep:

Jon, appreciate your insights and elaborations on B & H’s discrimination issues. I had read some of the stories about their problems and was shocked– quite disappointed as they had been one of the good guys among the big NYC camera stores.

Alas, this undermines our faith and we no longer will buy from them or even look at their website. It’s sad, truly sad, but we need to support our fellow countrymen and women and end discrimination.

You’re welcome, Tim, and, of course, I agree with you that we should not do business with companies that engage in such ongoing discrimination. Unfortunately, you might be incredibly surprised at how many people refuse to embrace that very simple position. I sure was. I posted this information as what I considered a public service over at Cloudy Nights, because 1) I know that B&H is a very popular astronomy vendor – heck, I even bought a filter from them – and 2) most people not in the New York area (which is most people) just wouldn’t know or have any way of knowing what B&H is doing and has been doing in this area.

The thread proved to be insanely controversial, with some of the same opinions expressed here, but only in a much more volatile way. Within one day, the thread was locked, and shortly thereafter, deleted. It shocks and bothers me that fellow astronomers, who I consider to be intelligent and rational types, stick to their political “principles” in the face of evidence. But there it is.

However, I’ll continue to look at their website. Why? Because the information about the product is presented in a very accessible way. And also because doing so costs them some infinitesimal amount money to keep their servers running to present the info to me. Hey, nothing wrong with a little spite, right? Heh, heh.

Your responses so far have been from people with far more telescope expertise than I have – I am a previous recipient of advice from this same thread just before Christmas.

I only wanted to add that if you DO want an equatorial mount after all consideration, my research showed that the only one in your pricepoint is the Orion AstroView 90mm Equatorial Refractor Telescope [9024] (just copied this off my bookmark 🙂 it is $280 USD on amazon.com at the moment). After much debating over telescopes I ended up purchasing this for husband (who has a PhD in astronomy) as a first/semi-portable telescope (it also has the option of a motor for the mount btw – not necessary at the beginning but a nice option). His knowledge of how to use small (ie not inside large observatory domes!) telescope was a bit limited on the practical side initially, but he has been extremely pleased with this telescope in terms of ease of use, clarity for viewing, and for beginning astrophotography (not the quality of $3000+ options obviously). Reviews are easily findable on various sites if you want to read more. Worth you taking a look at, anyway, so you have the full range of options to compare.

I am looking to buy a telescope as a gift, and really struggling choosing the best option. I think the gift recipient would want to use the telescope to view planets and deep sky, and to take pictures. I am struggling choosing between Nexstar 127SLT and AstroView EQ 90. Any suggestions?

Hi, JP. I have the 127, and I love it. The optics are terrific, but the mount is sort of on the cheap side. I’ve had some problems with it and have had to return it 2x in a year. I returned the first one to Amazon, and they sent me out a new scope immediately, no questions asked. Great customer service. The second time I had to send it to Celestron for warranty repairs. Customer service nightmare. But it is a 2-year warranty, they did fix it properly, and I haven’t had any problems in the year since. If you get a good one for your friend and don’t experience these problems, you’re in good shape. And if you don’t, there is the warranty.
Getting past the mount deficiency, obviously, the main difference between the two scopes is that the NexStar finds stuff for you (and does a good job at it too). The NexStar system is dead easy to use. It’s also nice to have the extra aperture of 127 over 90 which will let you see more, and at higher magnifications.
Both scopes will do well at both planets and DSOs, but neither of these two scopes are designed for astrophotography. If your friend wants to do that, they can buy their own scope capable of it down the line. Of the two, though, the 127 will do better on AP because it has a motor that tracks objects, albeit, not in the proper way. The EQ mount on the 90 does track objects the proper way, but it isn’t motorized.
One important advantage of the 90 over the 127 is the field of view. The 127 is capable of just over one degree – that’s the width of two full moons. With the 25mm eyepiece that comes with the 90, it is capable of 1.4 degrees; and if your friend wanted to buy a 32mm, they could get 1.7 degrees, which is nice.

If you get your friend the 90, they will need to get a Barlow right away. The 2 eyepieces it comes with will only get up to 100x magnification. The 90 is capable of nearly twice that and your friend will want to get to 200x on the moon and planets to see detail. A good Barlow will cost between $30 and $40, although you could easily spend more. Obviously, even with the Barlow, that’s still cheaper than the 127, which runs around $400.

But why not consider the Meade Infinity 102 instead of the 90? A bit more aperture, only about $200, and it comes with the Barlow already?

Thanks so much, Jon. I have read a lot of reviews about 127, and many people have reported having a lot of issues similar to yours. Since this is a gift, I don’t want to create more issues for my friend since he will be the one who will have to deal with it. Although I do like the quality of the Mak telescope and the idea of a computerized easy to use system.

I haven’t looked into the Meade Infinity before coming across this website. Seems like it could be a good option.

In some ways, yes. It has a wider field of view, and refractor optics are very nice and sharp. Refractors also don’t have much cooldown time, where Maks do. That means that if you take a scope out from a heated room into the night air, it takes a while for the optics to acclimate to the ambient temperature so that they can give you your best views. This time is a lot shorter with a refractor (about 15 minutes) than with a Mak (about 30-45 minutes, or more). The amount of time depends on the temperature differential. You can still do lower magnification observing while the scope cools down.
The $200 for that Meade Infinity 102 would be a complete setup – it comes with three decent eyepiece plus the Barlow, and you really wouldn’t need anything else. So, if you wanted to get your friend a more complete observing package, you could buy some extras, like books (Nightwatch, Turn Left at Orion), a planisphere (for figuring out constellations), and a red light flashlight (to protect your dark adaptation). A kit like this might be helpful:http://agenaastro.com/david-chandler-first-light-astronomy-kit.html
It is a shame about the SLT mount being not the best, and I agree with you that you don’t want to give a gift that’s actually a problem in disguise. BUT – if you’re willing to spend a little more, there is the 4SE. It is also a Mak, 4 inches as opposed to 5 in the 127, but it’s on a much better, sturdier, and more reiiable mount – the SE mount, which is a big improvement over the SLT. Better accuracy, more stable. It’s $500 as opposed to $400, however. Obviously, you still get all the benefits of a computerized mount, you still get the great Mak optics, and you’ve got a small amount of extra aperture (102) over the 90.

You’re welcome. I just wanted to point out that it’s not so much that the scope has better reviews overall; it’s just that the SE mount is definitely superior to the SLT mount. My 127SLT optics are also definitely superior to the 4SE optics based solely on the increase in aperture from 4 to 5 inches.
A telescope consists of three components. If any one of those is sub-par, it will effect the rest of the components, too. They are the mount, the optics (the mirror or objective), and the eyepiece. In this case, while the optics and eyepieces are pretty much equivalent in quality in the 127 and 4SE (even with the significant aperture differential), the mount is where there is a significant difference in quality between the two. In fact, I am considering buying the SE mount alone for $350 to replace my current mount whenever my current mount eventually decides to give up the ghost. It would be both a replacement and a significant upgrade. I only wish they sold the 127 optics on the SE mount – that would be a terrific combo.

If I just get a Mak (like Apex brand), what are good options for a tripod? Are there any computerized tripods, like the ones that come with SLT or SE? Also, how much more difficult will it be use a Mak without a computerized system for a beginner?

Orion sells a nice computerized mount called the StarSeeker IV. This is a definite improvement over the SLT mount because it has releasable clutches. What this means is that if anything happens to the motors in the mount, or if your battery dies, or if you just want to starhop instead of using the goto, you can. (The SLT azimuth clutch doesn’t release.) You can also release the clutches and move the scope manually, and the scope will still know where it’s pointed in the sky. However, it’s $400; I would still prefer the SE mount for $350 over the SS IV but only because I know the SE; I don’t have experience with the SS IV.
But I wouldn’t get the Apex brand Mak. All of the Maks are exactly the same; they are literally all made in the exact same factory (Synta is the name) in China. Then they are painted different colors and distributed to the different vendors (Celestron, Orion, Skywatcher). Orion has a nasty little habit of overcharging for the exact same stuff this way. The Apex 127 tube alone costs $400 – the same as the Celestron 127 tube + the mount/tripod. You would be throwing your money away to get the Apex + a mount/tripod over the SLT. You could buy the SLT, sell the mount for say, $100 or $150, and then get another mount.
As for using a Mak on a manual tripod to starhop, you can do it, but I would recommend against it, especially for a beginner. The 127 Mak has a narrow 1.05 degree field of view. Starhopping with that is tough because of that limited field of view. You would have to use a planetarium program like Stellarium to find your way around the sky, using dim stars as guideposts to find your way. Like I said, you can do it, but I wouldn’t want to. If you got the 102mm Mak instead (either as part of the 4SE or as an Apex from Orion), the maximum field would be a little wider at 1.19 degrees, so that’s just not a big improvement over the 127 – starhopping would still be a chore. Better to get a computerized mount.

Thank you for this article! I have always been intrigued by the cosmos and am considering getting my first scope to share with my kids. I have one concern about which I can’t seem to find an article – will I run out of stuff to look at? I’ve followed the advise to start out with binoculars, learn a few constellations, etc. And obviously, with my binoculars, I really can’t see anything other than enhanced detail of the moon. My fear is that, once I get a scope (I’m considering starting with something like a 6″ dobsonian) and show the kids Jupiter’s moons, Saturn’s rings and a few of the other obvious objects, am I going to run out of “stuff” that my kids will find cool to look at? Will I quickly need to upgrade to a more expensive scope to see more distant objects? Or am I missing the point, and one doesn’t simply check Jupiter off a list to look for different objects? Will Saturn and Jupiter look different throughout the years? Any advice for an absolute newb would be great. Thanks in advance!

One way to answer this question would be to share with you my recent experience showing off my scope to a friend and his 12-year-old son. I dazzled him with the moon, intrigued him with Jupiter (and the promiseof seeing a moon shadow transit later in the evening, but was past his bedtime), and then showed him the Great Orion Nebula, one of the true showpiece objects of the sky. I mean, “great” is right there in its name, right?

And even though I explained he was seeing a stellar nursery, even though I explained that he was seeing it as it looked 400 years ago, in Shakespeare’s time, around the time of the Spanish Armada, he was less than thrilled. Really underwhelmed, in fact.

It depends on how interested the kid is in astronomy. You can’t buy a scope with that kind of thinking, or else it won’t be worth it. Yes, there is more detail that you can see on Jupiter, yes, you can see that Saturn’s rings go through a 27-year cycle of phases in which they get less and less visible (but your kid will have kids of his own by that time), yes, you can see different things on the moon all the time as the actual phases of the moon change from night to night.

But going beyond that into the Messier objects you are less wowed by the actual sight of an object than the thought process that goes behind what it is you’re looking at. M57, the Ring Nebula, is the death-throes of a star like our sun. M31 is Andromeda, a galaxy like our own, but twice our size, that we will collide with in a couple of billion years. M45, the Pleiades, are the result of a star factory like M42. And so on.

I find that – sort of like another adult pursuit 🙂 – the mind adds greatly to the enjoyment of the hobby. The objects themselves may be more or less beautiful, but knowing what they are makes them much more beautiful. Whether a kid can “get it” like that is something only the kid can decide.

As for your choice, a 6″ dob is a great choice – great for you, great for a kid, in terms of use and transport. Just be aware of collimation, the act of getting all of the optical components of the scope in perfect alignment. Do yourself a favor, go to Youtube, watch a couple of videos about collimating a scope, make sure you understand what’s involved before buying a dob.

I have a 15-year-old son, and he definitely “gets it”! He knows more than I will ever know about astronomy, and he is begging me to upgrade his telescope. This article helped, thank you, but at the same time, I am even more confused! He has been looking at getting an ES AR102, but he has also decided he wants to pursue astrophotography as well. His ultimate goal is to be an astrophysicist, which will take some time. Is the ES AR102 a good choice, or will we end up having to upgrade sooner than later? Thanks for your help!

There is no one telescope that excels at everything, but an 80mm Apochromatic (APO for short) is a good quality starter, and a scope I personally use a lot. For astrophotography though, the telescope is just part of the equation. A steady equatorial mount is the most important piece to image deep sky objects that need long exposures. If your son wants to start out with planets, the mount is less critical. Just be away that even the best telescope can quickly become frustrating if the mount it is on isn’t up to task.

Astrophotography can, by the way, be done with a camera and standard lenses to start with. An entry level DSLR makes a very good intro astrophotography camera. If you really want to start simple on the astrophotography part, a camera tracker mount like the iOptron Skytracker is a great way to go. The best part about it to me is it’s light and easy to setup and use for some good images.

The great thing about kids getting into astrophotography — they’ll never have money for alcohol or drugs 😉

Hi, Michelle – heh, heh! Yeah, all kudos go to Sorin for writing such a great article in the first place. I’m just a guy who likes to help out beginners, and I frequently post a link to Sorin’s article to help people out.
Sorin is right about serious AP. The apo is the name of the game there; either that, or a good SCT. This is because of the color fringing Sorin mentions, called chromatic aberration – everything bright will be surrounded by a “purple haze”, no thanks to Jimi Hendrix. Explore Scientific also makes apos, but they are very much more expensive than the regular achromats, like that ES AR102 that your son is looking at. As Sorin points out, if he gets heavily into AP, he won’t have any money left over for anything else, so you can rest easy as a parent!

AP is almost an entirely different hobby from just visual astronomy. I don’t do any AP myself; I’m a strictly visual observer, which is much easier on my wallet. But I read a lot about it, and Sorin is right; it really isn’t so much about the scope in AP, it’s all about the mount. The mount needs to be sturdy and accurate, and both of those things together mean that the mount must therefore be relatively big and heavy – and more expensive than a mount you might get if you weren’t doing AP. If your son is really looking for something serious in terms of an EQ mount, the Celestron AVX mount is supposed to be a very good entry-level mount for AP, and won’t put too much of a dent in the wallet. You can buy the mount alone for $799, and the mount with a 6-inch reflector for $899, which is a pretty good bargain, considering that the scope would cost well over $200 all by itself.

As for the ES AR102 for visual use, it is a very nice quality scope, well-built, very good optics, but the $399 price only includes the tube, without a mount. Also, it is only a 4-inch scope, so for visual use, yes, he most likely will outgrow it rather quickly; unless you live in an area with very dark skies, far away from big cities. In that case, the 4-inch refractor would be able to show him a lot. But ES also sells 5-inch and 6-inch versions of that scope as well which would take longer to “outgrow”.

However, the problem with those 5- and 6-inch refractors is something called “moment arm”. That means that because the scope is long and skinny, and heavy at both ends, it will have a tendency to vibrate and take a long time to settle down after moving it, or while focusing it. That can be frustrating.

If collimation doesn’t seem too daunting to your son (see my comments in response to others in this post for discussion about that), and if he is interested in a visual-only telescope that will show him a ton without breaking the bank, for the exact same $399 he would spend on the ES AR102, he could get a Zhumell Z8, an 8-inch dobsonian reflector that could be a lifetime scope. An 8-inch dob can show you thousands of objects, and although it is the size of a small water heater, it wouldn’t be too big or heavy for your son to use. I used a similar type scope at his age, and my name is definitely not Ah-nold.

Hi James,
I agree with Jon’s advice on this – having an understanding of these objects adds a whole new dimension to what you see. I’ll add that I know people who have been observing since they were kids and are still doing it well into their 80s. Don’t forget that the night sky is different throughout the year, the planets are always moving, and there are the occasional once in a lifetime events like comets that may put on a show just once in all of human history before departing out solar system forever! (Comet Catalina, still visible in a moderate telescope like a 6″, is an example of this!) There are also events like the transit of mercury on Monday morning (which requires a solar scope, or a solar filter to view safely). What is probably most helpful is connecting with a local group of other amateur astronomers. There are astronomical societies in just about every city, and having some camaraderie can really add to the enjoyment. The Astronomical League also offers a whole slew of observing programs that can add some structure and specific goals for observing different types of objects. In sort, there is so much to be seen and understood, you’ll never run out of objects to point at. I think the key is really to foster that interest in what you are looking at – not just a fuzzy dot in the sky, but a frozen ball of ice and dust from when the solar system first formed that has spent 4.5 billion years out in the ort cloud, which got nudged toward the inner solar system thousands of years ago, and is being heated by the sun for the first time, creating that fuzziness around it as thousands of pounds of ice sublimates from the solar heating!

Well that was weird. Started to reply and then lost the whole thing. Hopefully this isn’t duplicated.
Hi Steve,
thanks for the links. Your were right. Guy was short on delivery awards but very informative. Especially his parts on the autoguider which is my next investment. The CGEM does great and allows for 1 to 2 minute exposures without any fuzziness but definitely there is need for longer.
I started with the larger scopes for observing but then the AP bug quickly bit me. It is funny how there are so many opinions out there. It certainly makes it confusing for newbies coming in!
I love the AVX thus far and the images are super clear. Of course I have nothing to really compare this to other than the newtonian. I just recently joined the Deerlick Astronomy Village here in GA and looking forward to some upcoming star parties to mingle and check out other set ups!
I wish I could share a few photos of AP, here, that I’ve already taken. Catching something as simple as Orion nebulae has truly inspired me with awe and hence the going out for the camera mod to be able to get Rosette, California and other Ha nebulae.
After having to give up riding motorcycles I definitely needed a new hobby and it paired perfectly with my love for astrophysics and astronomy. It has opened whole new worlds…literally!

I am happy that astronomy has opened new vistas for you. It is a much safer avocation than riding hogs.

I own a Celestron AVX 6″ refractor and I love the who rig. Jiggly mounts are real deal breakers for me. The AVX is light and portable, yet sturdy and steady.

If you had occasion to look at his photographic work using a small refractor, you will agree that it is pretty much Hubble quality. 🙂 I don’t think you could get much more with greater apertures. AP is a financial sink hole that I am willing to pass on. My short bout with astrophotography years ago gave me my fill. I am a visual man.

My recent observing partner of two years was a newbie and instantly plunged himself into AP. The hours we spent under the stars he spent with his back to the telescope, burning his eyes out on a computer screen. I thought that was tragic and so impersonal! He missed entirely the communion with the sky I experience at the eyepiece. Why not just run cables from the house and operate from your easy chair while knocking back a beer? Oh well. to each his own!

LOL! I actually saw an article on how to do just that! Running cables to monitor from inside your house.
I like to try to find items i want to see by first attempting to locate them in the sky without the GoTo feature. I rely on Stellarium to get me close then I compare the position of the stars off of my tablet in relation to the objects in the sky. I’ll identify two or three just to learn positioning then I’ll polar align. Its really helped me learn the names of the major stars and relations. (I did cheat in the beginning by using GoTo from day one and having the scope name the object). I’ll admit the GoTo feature is really nice if you are just wanting to get up and running fast.
After the polar alignment I switch it over to the camera. Planetary viewing (Jupiter, Mars & the Moon) has been awesome but so far I keep missing Saturn. Sometimes just too far past my bedtime. But its coming!

“My recent observing partner of two years was a newbie and instantly plunged himself into AP. The hours we spent under the stars he spent with his back to the telescope, burning his eyes out on a computer screen. I thought that was tragic and so impersonal! He missed entirely the communion with the sky I experience at the eyepiece.”

Steve, I couldn’t agree more. What you said here is pure poetry. I do respect what APers do, and yes, when you see some of the stuff they’re capable of, it’s truly impressive. But when it comes right down to it, you’re just looking at a picture on a computer screen.

There’s nothing more magical than having those photons that have travelled across the solar system, or clear across the galaxy, or for millions of years when there were only australopithecines running around here on earth, and having them end up hitting your retina so you can see these objects directly for yourself. That’s the draw; that’s the attraction.

I’ve referenced this article a few times today! Super helpful. I recently relocated to rural Nova Scotia and it’s gorgeous deep & dark skies has inspired me to take up astrophotography. Question: the Celestron 6″ w/ motorized mount you mention in the SUV section–it says on b&h photo it weighs 75lbs! Is that so? You mentioned it’s similar to one you own already. Id like to be able to take it out and about occasionally. Thanks!

In the specs section there, it says 76 pounds – but that’s the tube (called the OTA – optical tube assembly), the mount, AND all the boxes and packaging materials. If you look at the line right above that, it says 46 pounds is the actual weight of the entire telescope, the OTA + mount. And even that breaks down into two sections: 10 pounds for the OTA, and therefore 36 pounds for the mount.

If that’s still too much weight for you, you can get the exact same optics on a lighter mount, the Celestron 6SE, instead, and save $400. The 6SE has a total weight of 30 lbs., so that means the same 10 pounds for the OTA and 20 pounds for the mount.

Another question I have is around storage. We live near the ocean, so I’m concerned about humidity affecting the scope when it’s not in use. This will be me second scope (bought my first on Craigslist for $20–an inexpensive old Newtonian.), buts it’s my first new one and I want to take really good care of it. I plan to store it in my garage for ease of access. Do you think it’ll keep ok?

More important than the humidity is the salt air. That will ruin optics – eventually. But how near is near? As long as you’re not observing right at the ocean, you should be fine. But even if you are, the local astronomy club when I was a kid many years ago had its star parties at the beach, so maybe it’s not as bad as I’m making out. Or maybe they were just idiots. Either way. 🙂

Storing your scope in the garage is absolutely fine, regardless. Of course, you’ll keep all the caps on it when you’re not using it, so that’s fine. If you want to go the extra mile, you can throw some kind of plastic sheet over it, too. The best thing about storing the scope in the garage is that it is at the ambient outside temperature already – it doesn’t need a prolonged cooldown time, like 45 minutes to an hour, to give its best views like it would if you stored it in your heated house.

As for humidity, the only thing you have to concern yourself with is dew, and that’s only when the scope is uncapped and you’re using it. You can buy a dewshield for any scope in the universe for about 30 to 40 bucks. Or you can do like I did (I’m cheap!) and go to a craft store like Michael’s, buy some sheets of black foam, glue them together, glue on some velcro strips, and make your own for about 5 bucks or so. Otherwise, like I said, a plastic sheet over the top, tied with a rope or bungee, and you should be golden.

By the way, one of the things about that AVX mount is that it is a good mount for intro astrophotography. You can do a little AP with that SE mount at $699, but at $1199, you can do a lot of AP with that AVX mount because it’s an equatorial mount that tracks the sky properly, and it’s a lot heavier than the SE mount. The SE mount is an alt-az mount and tracks the sky differently.

We live about 2 miles from the ocean. Super helpful to know about the dew. Thierry Legault mentions that in his book Astrophotography, which I’m just eating up right now. It’s thick, but full of good info. I like the idea of trying a homemade dew preventer! So far as the mount goes, I think I will spring for the sturdier mount, especially since I’m buying the scope largely for the sake of AP. I’ve already got a DSLR, and I’m kind of curious about CCD cameras, but will probably hold off until I get my bearings!

If where you store the scope is particularly humid, you can also throw a few desiccant packs into the case just as a little extra insurance. Mold growing on the lens can be a problem in very rare cases. When I lived in Seattle about a mile from the Sound, never had any concerns about salt air or the humidity when storing the scope, but also kept it inside the house.

As Jon mentioned, you’ll want a dew shield, whether purchased or home made. I’d also suggest having some of those chemical hand warmers that you can tape around the rim of the front element of the scope with a little masking or painters tape. I use this trick with my refractor and camera lenses for wide field imaging, and it’s just enough heat to keep the dew away. Simpler option than the full blown dew heater systems, and a necessity if you are pointing close to the meridian on a humid night.

Since you mentioned you are buying a scope primarily for AP, I do recommend starting with a short refractor like an 80mm f/6 vs an SCT for the shorter focal length, which is much more forgiving of tracking errors during long exposures. Either way though, it’s a fun journey!

6 months later, I thought I’d close the loop and share that I went with the 8″ SCT telescope with the AVX mount. Jon and everyone elses’ guidance on this forum was so helpful, and I’m SO grateful because I’ve been LOVING this telescope! Coming into owning such a fancy piece of gear, I was at first intimidated and nervous about doing something wrong. But the gear is so sturdy. All it took was patience to learn All Star Polar Alignment, and once I got that down, so long as skies cooperated, sailing went smoothly.

I’d highly recommend the Celestron 8″ SCT. I had the opportunity to visit a star party where I live in Nova Scotia, and can say without a doubt this scope holds its own with the best of them. If you’re wondering whether or not a purchase like this is worth the money, cast your doubts aside and just DO IT if you have the funds! I came into telescope ownership with zero experience, and its been so rewarding.

Other gadgets I’ve purchased: a variety of eye pieces, barlow lens, moon filter, focal reducer, kendrick dew heater & controller, Celestron basic polar alignment scope (super helpful for making the alignment process easy peasy), a swanky bag for my optical tube from StarGuy, and a Power Tank. Also bought a camera adapter for my Canon Rebel and have been going to town playing around with deep sky photography! I didn’t buy any stacking software yet. Just enjoying some simple editing in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Happy to help answer any questions anybody might have if they are a first time telescope buyer.

Having just joined into the fun of AP, I thought I would give some input after going through 3 scopes to find the one that actually works for what I do.
I started with a Celestron 6″ Newtonian on their Go To mount. It was great for observing only though. I noticed a lot of vibration and using the old camera phone up to the eyepiece was a total waste. Thanks to Amazon, I returned it within 20 days and moved to the 6″ SE model. (really helps to do all your research first!) First thing I noticed after getting a DSLR camera and all the kit for it and attaching, is that the standard SE mount totally sux for AP. You have to have a wedge to track anything properly unless you are taking photos in 3 sec increments and even then you wind up re-positioning the scope constantly. You can make up for this using Photoshop or a true AP program like Nebulosity. For planet photos it seems fine but still not up to the true challenge.
So again, thanks to Amazon, I finally completed my research and went with the Celestron AVX 8″ SCT on the CGEM. PERFECT!!!! Once you get a hold on polar aligning (great how to videos on Youtube), the tracking is amazing and you can get good long exposures for deep sky objects and planetary imaging. To get even more accurate tracking and exposure, you can go with an auto-guider at a later date. For what I am using it for, it works fine without the guider. I’ve been able to get great photos of Orion, Sombrero galaxy and the Rosette nebulae. However, don’t expect the beautiful red gas clouds in some photos unless you have a full spectrum filter in your DSLR. ($275 mod and thanx to Lifepixel for that! Totally worth it!)

Well, it was a rough road to getting a successful rig for AP. I am glad you made it.

My best recommendation for you for the most practical and satisfying AP results is in using a small 80-90mm f/5 or f/6 apo refractor. For astrophotography, it is not aperture that is important. It is all about f/ratio. Short f/ratios mean fast exposure times.

Here is a set of videos all about astrophotography that is highly informative. The guy won’t get any awards for delivery, but that aside, it is the best advice I have found on the net.

I am very impressed by the thoughtful, helpful and detailed responses posted so am hoping that I can also receive some advice on telescopes to purchase.

The users: My son (8) and myself – interested beginner astronomers and (opposite end of spectrum!) my husband who actually has a Ph.D. in observational astronomy but has never owned a telescope of his own (used huge ones on top of mountains in various parts of the world yes, but that isn’t much help!). He also is a keen photographer, and we have a Nikon DSLR. We would not initially do a lot of moving the telescope about, with the notable exception that we do go camping so could pack it to take along with us, possibly.

We have a budget of course, and have been considering various options. We are trying to balance the long-term expandability and husbands wish for photography with price – but we don’t want to spend too little so all we achieve is to frustrate the beginners.

At the higher end of our budget (if we add extras) in no particular order

1) Orion StarBlast 4.5 Equatorial Reflector Telescope [9798]
– main issue here seems to be the DSLR won’t work.
– there seems to be a motorized single-axis drive that will work (do we need it?)
– we could buy something like Orion StarShoot USB Eyepiece Camera II [52183] to go with it, but I have no idea what the picture quality will be

2) Meade Infinity™ 102mm Altazimuth Refractor [209006]
– seems to get good reviews, and comes with a lot of eyepieces etc.
– don’t know if a motorized drive is available (again do we need one for photography)
– is the equatorial mount on the other 2 telescopes worth it at this pricepoint?
– no idea if a DSLR camera will attach well or take decent pictures

3) Orion AstroView 90mm Equatorial Refractor Telescope [9024]
– seems to get good reviews
– there is a motorized single-axis drive for EQ1 but I don’t know if that works with this (again, necessity?)
– a T and ring adapter for Nikon will attach the camera to the telescope, but will we actually be able to take decent pictures?

Above our budget, but due to a Black Friday sale might just about be doable if it is REALLY worth it:

This is $400 Cdn instead of $650, but we need to buy a mount/tripod which will add a LOT to the price (suggestions?) and I don’t even know how to start working out what would work. Also, no idea if/how to attach a camera.

Is this worth considering, and any thoughts on how we would make it work for us?

This is already really long – thanks for reading, but any other suggestions for a scope that would perhaps fit our needs and budget based on the above? Thank you!

At the extreme other end of the spectrum, we can get a Celestron – PowerSeeker 60AZ Telescope [21041] free from my husbands work rewards. There are camera mounts and a cheap motorized drive available, but I am worried that this telescope might not be worth buying the extras to do the photography, and that it might just end up frustrating the beginners and advanced parts of the household alike if we can’t adjust it to get good viewing (and photos), or if it will break/fall apart after just a few trips due to everything being made of plastic. We could add everything husband wants to this for $100 Cdn total, but will it actually do anything or just be a doorstop?

Hi, Nicole. Let me first start out by saying that you “can’t” achieve your goals at the price points you’re talking about. Also let me say that a lot of what I’m going to say here is based on virtually no first-hand experience whatsoever; however, I’ve been reading up on astronomy pretty continuously for the past year and a half (I’m unemployed, and it’s just what I like to do), and I have read up a bit on astrophotography.

What it sounds like you want to do is to get into astrophotography (AP) in a big way, or at least in a significant way. It looks like you’re looking at a price range of about $300-500 (US) or so to do so. And at that level, the only kind of AP that you can do is moon shots and maybe some of Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, and Mars. And this would be achievable either by holding your lowly smartphone up to the eyepiece of the scope, and taking pictures that way. What I suggest is that you join up a Facebook group called Telescope Addicts. Don’t worry, they let everyone join. You’ll see plenty of photos just like I described. You’ll also see some outstanding photos that will make your jaw drop open and wonder just how private citizens are able to use the Hubble with such frequency. Well, they can’t – people post photos that they’ve taken with their own scopes, from the ground.

AP is ALL ABOUT THE MOUNT. And by that, I mean that the mount sometimes costs more than the telescope. This is because the mount has to be sturdy and steady – and therefore heavy, and expensive – so that it has no vibrations whatsoever, either from the motor drive or the wind. The least expensive entry-level mount/scope combo to start with AP is the Celestron AVX. To show you what I’m talking about, you can buy the the mount itself at $799; or you can buy it with a 6-inch newtonian reflector included on it, and it’s $899, so they’re charging you only $100 for a telescope that’s worth at least three times that.

The AVX is a big, heavy mount. Not something that your 8-year-old could handle, or even a 10 or 11-year-old, either. But it’s big and heavy precisely to make sure that as you’re taking a long exposure, it doesn’t shake, wobble, or vibrate at all. In the price range you’re talking about, you’re looking at getting a telescope that’s purely for visual observing.

But the basic foundations of your question – a scope you can take along with you on trips and do AP with – are completely at odds with each other. You can have one or the other, but you can’t have both. Well, not unless your husband’s first name is Ah-nold.

Now, note that I said you “can’t” get a scope that will do AP, in quotes. This is the standard line I give to anyone asking this question on this budget. Until one day at Telescope Addicts, someone else came along and said, “Oh, yeah? Well, here’s a picture of the Orion Nebula (M42) I took with my unmotorized dob.” And it was a pretty nice picture. Not outstanding, not something that would make your jaw drop out open, but it was a real picture of it. And my only response was to apologize and say, “Well, shut my mouth!” So, yes, it is possible to do AP, with ANY telescope, motorized or not.

What this guy did was he took a video exposure of about 30 seconds or so, which, at 30 frames per second, is about 1000 frames. During that time, the nebula moved across the field of view of the eyepiece – it was neither steady nor still. But apparently (and again, I have extremely little actual experience here) the stacking software (Google either Registax or Autostakkert) will still be able to take those very short exposure photos and stack them on top of each other and create a picture out of it that would be as if it were one long exposure onto film. My guess is that this is a much more difficult way to go about doing AP than if you just bought an actual tracking mount, like the AVX and did it that way.

Believe it or not, AP isn’t really even about the size (aperture) of the scope, either. Some of the most amazing photos I’ve seen have come from people using 4″ refractors – like the Meade Infinity 102. Well, actually unlike it, because the 4″ refractors this one particular guy I’m thinking of was using was what’s called an apochromatic refractor (3 objective lenses in the front instead of the normal 2), and was probably about $2000. Just for the refractor alone, no mount. But the pictures were gorgeous, Hubble-like.

So, it is hard for me to answer your question directly. Even though I have been proven “in your face!” wrong on the need for a motor to do AP, I would still say that the general rule is that, “Yes, you need a motor to do AP” unless you’re masochistic. But I’m not sure about that.

I defer to others who know more about AP than I do for a better answer.

Thanks for taking the time to reply! I think you have summarized my dilemma precisely – I have realized the two “ends” of our astronomy household have totally conflicting needs. Given we don’t really have the budget for the higher end mount to go into the AP seriously at the moment, I guess I am looking for what setup will give some photos that are good enough to keep husband happy, while allowing son to get into astronomy. Given husband has been talking about photo stacking etc. (sorry I am not the expert!) I think he is also aware of the limitations of our first budget etc.

If it turns into a passion, then we can invest in a better setup that stays home,and this initial purchase is the more moveable version (not married to Ah-nold….). So something durable enough to last a while and perhaps have the chance of seeing some fainter sky objects on really good nights would be good at this stage I think. It sounds like the photography lacks in initial equipment can be compensated for a bit in software so that is probably less of a priority for the moment.

With it in mind I know that everything we are looking at is some sort of compromise between our completely at odds long term goals, would it be better to go with the ultra-cheap solution of the 60mm “free” scope and $100 of extra bits and save up for something like the AVX more quickly or start with something in the $300-500 range like from the list above (or others) which may last better and allow the beginners to see more to get excited and passionate about the hobby?

A great way to get started with AP is to do wide-field imaging. I consider that using a lens that’s less than 200mm in focal length. I’ve been very happy with the iOptron Skytracker in that regard. If you get even a fairly basic telescope with a motorized EQ mount, simply mounting a camera with a standard lens in place of the telescope can yield quite good results. To really do the narrow field (long focal length) astrophotography of the faint fuzzies, you not only need a solid EQ mount, but also an auto guider and a laptop to run it with. Wide field imaging reduces the complexity considerably, and can result in some amazing images. For instance, here’s a recent image of mine using the iOptron Skytracker with a lens at 105mm: https://flic.kr/p/vasYeu

AP gets easier (more forgiving of tracking issues) with wider lenses. Milky way images from a dark location with a very wide lens (14-24mm) can be quite spectacular, and a great way to start. And that can actually be done with a home-made barn door tracker. If your husband or you are handy, it’s a great little project (just google the term to find examples and instructions).

Okay, in that case, let me go in a slightly different direction. What I think might be best to satisfy everyone is to go for a good visual set up that you just happen to be able to take pictures from. Let me throw in that I have something like that (although I don’t have an interest in AP) with my Celestron NexStar 127SLT. This is a Maksutov scope; if you read through some of the comments, you’ll find us waxing on about it.

But I think what would work better for you is the Celestron NexStar 102SLT. This is a 4-inch refractor. In fact, it’s the same 4-inch refractor as the Meade Infinity 102, which you selected for yourself, and which we were recently recommending to Vittoria, just below.

Note the prices – the 102SLT is $399 at Amazon, while the Infinity 102 is $209. Like I said, same scope; the almost $200 difference is for the computerized motor. You are paying a significant amount for the tracking and finding capabilities of this scope. If you read up on the 102SLT, you’ll see that it not only has a motor, but a handset. The handset is programmed with the locations of thousands of objects in the sky, and moves the scope so you can see them automatically. You do have to enter your location (once) and the time and date (each time you turn the computer on) and do a simple two-star alignment. But after that, you just punch in M31 or M42 or NGC 457, and off it goes.

On the other hand, the 102SLT won’t be tracking the sky the right way. Google “star trails” to see what I mean. See how all the stars form great big circles in the sky? That’s because of the earth’s rotation – the stars rise and set, and in between, they make a circle around the pole star, Polaris. The 102SLT is an alt-az mount. That means that it tracks the sky differently – it goes up a smidge, and to the right a bit, up, right, etc., all night long. The object (moon, planet, star cluster, galaxy, whatever) stays in the field of view – what you can see in the eyepiece. BUT – after a little while, you get something called field rotation – the object stars turning in the field of view. So, for example, Saturn’s rings start out, let’s say, horizontal, but as the night goes on, they become more and more vertical.

Again, the stacking programs should be able to compensate for this field rotation, allowing you to take “long” exposures of a couple of minutes or more.

Now, there are complaints about the SLT mount being flimsy; I have this mount, and I disagree. It is an adequate mount that can be made better by doing a couple of very easy things. (I am NOT handy, by any means, so when I say “easy”, I’m not kidding.) These involve simply putting weights on the accessory tray, tightening some screws, and not extending the tripod legs the whole way, so you’re observing – and doing AP – sitting down.

But if you want a slightly better mount, an alternative to the SLT mount is the SE mount. Obviously, it’s more expensive, too. But you can buy the Celestron 4SE for $449. This has thicker, heavier tripod legs – but not so thick that it gets too heavy to move around, though. And the mounting arm is a bit stronger as well. The “problem” with the 4SE is that it’s just like my 127 Mak. The 4SE is the 127 Mak’s little brother – that means, like most any Mak, it “suffers” from a “narrow” field of view, and requires some additional cooldown time.

Note all the quotes in those sentences. Since I have the 5-inch version, I don’t think these are problems at all. There are maybe half a dozen objects – out of thousands = where you can’t see the whole thing at once through either my 127 or the 4SE – everything else, you can see them all at once. It’s just that the ones you can’t see are notable objects, like the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the Pleiades (M45), and the Hyades (M44). Having said that, you can see the core of the Andromeda Galaxy just fine; you can see 3/4 of the Pleiades at one time just fine; it’s not that you can’t see them at all. It’s just that they’re such large objects in the sky that you can’t see the entire thing at once. You can still photograph them, though; you just have to take one picture of this part, then another picture of that part, and then use the AP programs to stitch the photos together.

(P.S. If you’ve noted that I tend to gravitate toward recommending Celestron products, you’re right. I’m just more familiar with their universe of offerings than other retailers – sort of like a PC/Mac thing, except that all the stuff works with all the other stuff. In fact, since almost all astronomical gear is made in two factories in China/Taiwan, all the stuff generally IS the same stuff, just with different labels silkscreened onto them.)

Even given that the 4SE has a better mount, I still think that the 102SLT is probably the better scope for you, because not only is the 102SLT capable of higher magnifications of around 200x or so, but it has nice, wide fields of view, too. The 102SLT will let you see those half dozen objects all in the same field. So you can take a beautiful picture of the Pleiades or Andromeda in one photo instead of two or three.

As Sorin mentioned, there are other types of mounts, including equatorial mounts and barn door trackers that more accurately follow the motions of the sky so that field rotation is not a consideration.

Thanks again for your thoughts – I am finding them very helpful and I think we are closing in on a solution for the immediate future.

I looked up how to build the barn door tracker and indeed it seemed pretty straightforward, so that may definitely be an option for now. As an aside, I have ended up as one of the staff advisors for the astronomy club at my high school (I am a science teacher) and building some of these would be a great project for them independently of my own research for telescope.

Jon – I think the Celestron NexStar 102SLT is a definite contender. The only issue with it was husband commenting that while computer tracking is nice, he actually is fine with FINDING objects, so does not know if spending the extra on all the auto-find stuff is necessary since the telescope still has the alt-azimuth mount and you get the rotation effects you described. We can get this for $599 Canadian at the moment on sale (excluding camera mount, but that is about the same for both options we seem to have).

The alternative would be to get the Orion Astroview 90, and add the EQ-2 astrotrack drive, which comes in at $524 Canadian. This may be nice since the motor can be disengaged the “beginners” can learn to find things without relying on the computer (insert “learn the basics properly” comments received here…..!).

The two prices are similar enough that either works for me.

As far as I can tell, the 102 vs 90 is good (more light) but the Celestron is f6.5 and the Astroview is f10 (which may make some difference in image clarity I think? Apparently they used to make a f10 version of the Celestron too….amazing what crops up when I root around….wish I really understood what it all meant!).

Will 90mm vs 102mm make a significant difference to our viewing, given we are in a suburban setting so there is a fair amount of light pollution (although a short drive gets things much darker)?

Oops forgot the last bit AGAIN – definitely senility setting in……The other advantage of the Orion is that we could take advantage of Sorin’s suggestion and substitute the DSLR onto the motorized equatorial mount from the telescope and husband could do photography directly (although tripod stabilization/reinforcement likely an issue of course).

Hi Nicole,
The difference between F/6.5 vs F/10 isn’t that critical for photography, particularly in suburban skies. I think you would find that the mount on the Orion won’t work for much imaging through the telescope with a 900mm focal length for more than 10 or 15 seconds before you’ll likely start to see star trailing. Once you get to longer focal lengths, over about 600mm, you need a fairly robust mount and auto guider to achieve pin point stars. Very accurate polar alignment also becomes very critical. In that sense, the NextStar would work just as well since field rotation isn’t going to be noticeable in short (less than 30 second) exposures. Incidentally with suburban skies, about 20-30 seconds is the longest exposure you’re likely to be able to take. If you would rather find objects yourself without a computer, you should avoid the NextStar and most other computerized telescopes, as using the computer really is the only way to operate most of those scopes.

To really get a setup I would consider good for moderate focal length AP (300-800mm) you need to spend about $800 for just the mount – something like the Celestron AVX for instance. Anything lighter is likely to be frustrating. Incidentally, I do most of my imaging now with the iOptron Skytracker and a 70-200mm lens, and an SV80 480mm focal length refractor on a Celestron CGEM mount. Even the CGEM (A $1500 mount) has trouble keeping steady tracking for more than about a one minute exposure for my 1300mm telescope, even with the auto guider working to nudge it along.

You might consider a different approach: From a pure visual star hopping perspective, you can’t beat the value of an 8″ dobsonian, which are about $400 or so. It can’t be used for AP, but save a little money now, build a barn door tracker, or get something like an iOptron Skytracker for that instead. That also offers a scope to enjoy visually, while waiting for the camera to take images.

Since you mentioned being an advisor for your high school astronomy club, be sure if you haven’t already to reach out to the local astronomical society – just google that along with your city. Usually there are very knowledgable people in the local groups that are happy to give presentations at schools and help with star parties or other activities.

Nicole – there are a few different issues you’ve raised, and they show that you’ve got a good understanding of the whole situation. Yes, the 102 and the 90 are not very far apart in aperture, and I don’t think it would make much of a difference. I am of the feeling that every little bit helps, but observing from the city – I observe from Manhattan – the extra half-inch just isn’t going to do very much – it gets you just 2/10 of a magnitude, which just isn’t that big of a deal.

The next point is that yes, the focal lengths/focal ratios are different between the two scopes, and that makes a difference. The 90mm is f/10, meaning it is long and skinny, and the 102mm is f/6.5, meaning it is short and stubby. If you’ve ever seen any photos of those huge old 19th century refractors they have in observatories, they are all very long and skinny, and for good reason. The longer and skinnier a refractor is, the less chromatic aberration (CA) it will have. That means that the 90mm will have significantly less CA than the 102mm. CA is the green or purple fringing that occurs around bright objects like the moon, planets, and some brighter stars. I have an f/5 80mm refractor, and it definitely has CA. But some people don’t find it very objectionable or distracting. When I observe something bright in mine, I think to myself, “Hey, look at that purple haze!” and then two seconds later, I don’t even notice it. It’s not a huge deal. I imagine – you’d have to ask someone who really knows – that if you were to get the 102mm, the CA could be removed by the stacking software, but I’m not sure about that.

Yes, I believe – remember, no first-hand experience – that the motorized EQ-2 mount will track better than the alt-az SLT mount. But it’s important to realize that there’s nowhere to go from there. You mentioned upgrading to something better someday. The EQ-2 is a very light mount. You can’t take off the 90mm scope and put, say, a 127mm or 152mm scope on it instead. It will not handle the increase in weight well. That’s why they make EQ-3, EQ-4, EQ-5, and even EQ-6 mounts. On the other hand, what you could eventually do is move up to the EQ-3 mount, which is motorized and carries 12 lbs., allowing for a larger scope. I see they sell that one for $329. You could switch out the EQ-2 for the EQ-3 and get better stability on the mount for your 90mm; the pictures would come out a little better. The rule of thumb that I’ve read (remember – no first-hand experience) is that for good AP, you want the maximum payload capacity of the mount to beat least double the payload. Here, the 12 lb. payload of the EQ-3 would work wel with the 5 lb. 90mm refractor. And then you also have to figure in the weight of the diagonal, eyepiece, camera, etc., so you’re probably still above 6 or 7 pounds, but at least the ratio is a lot better.

As for mounting the camera directly to the mount somehow, you CAN do that with the 90mm. If you look at the first picture on the page, and zoom in to the rings holding the tube to the mount, you’ll see a screw sticking up there off of the front ring. Most cameras (and binoculars, by the way), and I would say almost all DSLRs have a standard 1/4-20 screw receptacle in them on the bottom. Check yours to see if it is has one, and if it does, you’re in business. You’ll be able to take those wide-angle Milky Way shots that Sorin was talking about by mounting your DSLR right there.

Just a couple of final words of advice here. Yes, if you’re going to do some “serious” AP – beyond simple moon or planet shots, yes, you wan’t to get out of town, get away from the light pollution, and get to darker skies. It will make a big difference in the quality of your AP.

So it looks like the 90mm Astroview with the motor is for you! Congratulations!

Sorry for my delay in posting to thank both for your help. Your advice has been invaluable, and I thank you for your thoughtfulness, patience and enthusiasm.

On balance we have indeed gone with the Astroview 9024, motor for mount, and have ordered the camera adapter + ring and also a ball mount to stick on the tripod by itself (it is a better tripod than our current camera tripod, even if not as good as it could be). So we will have our starter telescope for now and our long-term portable option as soon as the order arrives. Exciting……

I have also started the auto-debit savings of a smallish amount monthly as a contribution towards the astrophotography solutions that I think will be in demand in awhile!

Sorin – I am very fortunate with where the astronomy club (well, our school) is located – in addition to the local astronomy group, we actually are 1.5km from an observatory that does outreach (evening field trip in 2 weeks!), and also 2 universities with astronomy programs. One does guest speakers, and the other has a former student of mine in the astronomy program (3rd year) so we are working on an ongoing association with them and they do tours/public events also. So I am not short of external resources which I use heavily 🙂

We will let you know in a few months how the astronomy adventure is going.

I went with the Meade, more so because I really wanted something easy to use AND it comes with the barlow and other lenses, that is definitely a plus. I also figured out that pricewise as a start it’s the best choice. I’ll be able to give it to my kids in a few years when they are old enough to look through it and buy for myself a much better and more expensive one.

Thank you guys so much! You two are really amazing! I see with how much love you talk about this… there’s passion in your words!

I’m exicted about this new adventure of mine, my very first telescope. I’ll get it this Friday… I will let you know soon.

I googled Star Parties, looks like there’s one Astronomer Club not too far from where I live, here in California… I will definitely try to go once…

You’re very welcome! Actually, you might not want to give it to your kids in a few years. What I often tell beginners such as yourself is to buy your second scope first. What does that mean? Well, hopefully you will find after being involved in the hobby for awhile that no one telescope does it all. It’s like shoes – you don’t wear sneakers out on a date, and you don’t wear heels to the gym. (Or at least that’s what I tell my wife when I “need” another scope!)

Like I mentioned, the great thing about refractors is that they’re just ready to go. No collimation, very little cooldown time, and most important, they’re pretty light. Eventually you might buy a larger aperture scope, like an 8-inch SCT or a 10-inch dob. But some clear night, the first clear one in two weeks, you’re going get home from a long, hard day’s work, look over in the corner at the huge scope, sigh, and sit back in your comfy chair in front of the TV. Too much effort to bring out the big heavy monster scope.

Enter the “grab-and-go” scope – this one. It will overcome that inertia of sinking into that chair and get you outside and observing because it’s just so easy to use. One of the best things about that particular scope is that it is an excellent widefield scope. You can just take it out and start cruising around the arc of the Milky Way, which runs from Sagittarius in the south, through Cygnus, and into Cassiopeia. This is the heart of our galaxy and has the densest concentration of stars.

Which brings me to my final piece of advice: The best scope is the one you use. Just get out there under some dark skies and look up! Enjoy your new scope!

LOL how many telescopes do you have!!?! 🙂 – now… I just told my husband how great you guys have been with helping me out.. And he has a funny/awkward question for you: in our complex we have a nice hot tub and when we go there at night the sky is amazing and we love looking up… He would like to know if there’s a good binocular or similar that you could suggest? Something good enough to look at the sky from inside the tub.. :)))

Heh, heh, just the two scopes! Guys only ever need sneakers and dress shoes, that’s all.

I think it’s great that your husband wants to look at heavenly bodies while in the hot tub, but he should stick to looking at the one right next to him, not the ones up in the sky, heh, heh. There are a couple of big problems with observing from a hot tub. First is that the binoculars are going to be covered with water vapor instantly, and you won’t be able to see anything. Second, even if you do buy more expensive fogproof binos (they do make these), I think that the seeing is going to be pretty bad through them due to all the hot air rising from the tub.

You know how you see stars twinkling? That means that it is a night of poor seeing – twinkle, twinkle little star is a bad night to go out observing with a scope. The atmosphere can get turbulent, and that limits your ability to use high magnification in a telescope. This can come from a lot of things. Ever see the heat shimmering off of an asphalt road on a hot summer day? The atmosphere is doing that ALL THE TIME, but to a greater or lesser degree, and it is a telescope’s job to magnify that. I think that trying to observe from a hot tub would be just like that. But I’ve never tried it, and I could be wrong.

However, binos are good for that low-powered wide-field viewing I was talking about in my last post, like you’ll be able to do with your Infinity refractor, but even moreso. They’re especially good at spotting comets. I don’t know enough about binos to recommend any particular ones, but I can make some general recommendations. Stay away from 7x35s or 8x40s for astronomy. Those are usually for people who want to use them to look at things on the earth, and that’s less demanding than the sky is. Especially stay away from ones that have “ruby red” coatings on the front. That is the neon sign for “CHEAP BINOS”.

Instead get 8×50 or 10×50 binos. These are better suited for astronomy. The first number is the magnification; the second is the size of the objective lenses. Bigger is better = more light = more stuff to see. BUT – there is a limit. You can’t comfortably hold high magnification, large aperture binos in your hands and expect to see anything. They are too heavy to hold for any period of time (unless your husband’s first name is Ah-nold) and you can’t hold a high magnification bino steady enough to look at anything without it bouncing around. 15x70s are too much to hold in your hand; 12×60 is about the limit, but 10×50 is better because it’s easier to use.

You should be spending about $50 – $100 on binos to use like this. You can obviously spend more or less, but you’re chasing diminishing returns at the high end, and you’ll end up with something optically inferior at the low end.

By the way, off-topic, but something you asked about. I just found out that Sky & Telescope is having a great sale on star atlases and such. A particularly good one for beginners is the Pocket Sky Atlas, on sale for just $9.98, half off of its normal $19.95 price. I took it out from my library once, and this is a very good star atlas to use in the field, and ten bucks is a great price. Like I said, Stellarium is free, but this way, you don’t have to bring your laptop out with you to use a star atlas. Take a look here:

Also, one other thing I just thought of. One good accessory we haven’t mentioned is anti-vibration pads. What you will find is that when you go to focus the scope after you’ve put a new eyepiece in is that the scope vibrates so that finding the precise focus is difficult. Not impossible, just hard. Anti-vibration pads make this easier. Celestron and Meade sell them for about $40, but that’s a ripoff. Instead, you can buy these for $1.48 from Home Depot, like I did:

Great advise as per usual and also you made our night with your humor!!!! :)))) – I’ll deifnitely consider the sky atlas… so far I bought “NightWatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe”.. because it had excellent reviews and I wanted to have at least one book to start with.

Like Steve mentioned, the clock drive is a motor that moves the telescope slowly to counteract the rotation of the earth. For the same reason that the sun and moon rise and set, so do the stars. The clock drive will keep the telescope on target without your having to physically move the telescope. I looked for one for the Astroview, too, and I was only able to find this:

but I’m not sure that that motor drive is appropriate to the Astroview, because that motor drive is for an EQ1 mount, and the Astroview is on an EQ2 mount. What you could do if you want to look into this more is go to the Orion website and wait. After a couple of minutes, you’ll hear a tone and a chat box will pop up. Ask them if they have a clock drive or a motor drive that will work with the Astroview.

As for how to distinguish between our two recommendations, well, Steve and I have a little disagreement. Steve is in favor of the equatorial mount for a beginner. I am not. Steve can explain to you his reasons why he’s in favor of it. I’m against it because it’s a pain to use. You have to do something called a polar alignment for an EQ mount to work well. That’s where you have to align one of the axes – that’s one of the ways that a telescope moves – to Polaris, the north star. This isn’t too easy for beginners to be able to do. It’s also more “annoying” to move an EQ mounted scope to what you want to see in the sky. Because of the way the two axes are set up on the scope, the scope only moves in certain ways, and they’re not the ways that you would think – the two axes are set up to move the way the sky moves, which is to rotate around Polaris.

The scope I recommended, the Meade Infinity, is on an altitude-azimuth mount. It moves however you point it. It’s incredibly easy to use. You want to move it left and up, you just move it left and up. The EQ mount just doesn’t work that way. It’s tough to explain.

Steve does raise an excellent point about chromatic aberration (CA). Both scopes will have it; without getting too technical the Infinity has more; the Astroview has less. It has to do with the length of the scope versus the aperture, called the focal ratio. Longer skinnier refractors have less; short stubby ones have more. It gives a purple or green haze around the object. It only happens on very bright objects – but those are some of the best objects you’ll be looking at – the moon and planets. I have a refractor that has CA at probably about the same level as the Infinity, and I don’t find it very distracting. Whenever I look at the moon with mine, I notice the purple haze around it for two seconds, and then I forget that it’s there.

The best thing for you to do to figure this out for yourself is to get to a star party and look through a few scopes. A star party is where members of an astronomical club go out with their scopes and look at the sky together; the public is invited to look through. Google the name of the nearest big city to you with astronomy club or astronomy society or astronomy association after it : “Chicago astronomy society” or something like that. Most clubs hold star parties once a month or so, but maybe not as often in the winter. You can ask the people with the scopes all sorts of questions – most astronomers love to talk about their equipment.

As for other accessories for the Infinity, no, I can’t recommend any – other than what Steve has listed at the end of his post. Like I said, the Infinity has enough eyepieces and a Barlow to start out with – it really is pretty self-contained. I don’t think there’s a clock drive for it; but you could contact Meade and check that out yourself.

I’m not so sure you need a star chart or a planisphere – you can download a free planetarium program called Stellarium that will show you everything in the sky at your location on any given night. They have similar programs for your smartphone. But it is useful to have them in printed form for reference, if you prefer to do it that way. Like Steve said, a red flashlight is very useful for preserving your night vision. It really takes a good half hour for your eyes to adapt to the darkness. Your pupil takes only a couple of seconds; your retina takes much, much longer. The red light will keep that dark adaptation; one look at a white light source – or just observing the moon through the scope – will start that clock back at zero.

Hello, I am looking to buy my first scope and begin doing astrophotography. I use a Nikon DSLR presently. I am mostly interested in getting shots of nebulae, galaxies, and other DSOs.

Any thoughts on whether to go with a SCT with an AZ GoTo Mount vs a Newtonian 6″ on a GoTo AVX Mount? In general it seems like the AVX would be the better mount, but the SCT possibly the better scope. I’m leaning towards the better mount first and then potentially upgrading the scope later.

Richmr2, You definitely need an Equatorial mount for long-exposure imaging, which is required for nebula, galaxies, the faint fuzzies. You might look for the SCT on the AVX mount, which Celestron does sell. However, I actually recommend getting a wider field refractor to start with. There are quite a few larger nebula and galaxies to be imaged, and a shorter focal length is much more forgiving of tracking errors, which you will run into, particularly starting out. I started out with the 6″ SCT on a CG-5 mount (basically the previous version of the AVX) and it was a struggle to try imaging at 1500mm! Instead, get a nice 80mm f/5 refractor, and try imaging at 480mm focal length. This is excellent for Orion, Andromeda, the Pinwheel, and numerous other objects. In fact, I bought a nice 80mm APO refractor a bit more than a year ago, and I’ve used it more than my longer focal length scope.

Hi Sorin. Just a question about the 80mm refractor APO, I have the opportunity to get an espirit 100 refractor trip and it is for nebulas mainly. I’ve decided a refractor because I want to make this as easy for myself as possible and would eventually like to move into astrophotography.
The F stop is 5 which I’m also happy about but is this going to be the refractor for me if I wanted to capture nebulas? As a side note I’ve looked at reflectors but sometimes I travel to the outback and collimation is not something I want to get into not will there be a professional handy to help me fix it :).

I ended up on this page because I am desperately looking for “what” telescope to buy. I’ll start by saying that I don’t know anything about stars… I’m just extremely fascinated every night I look at the sky and I always wanted a telescope so now we finally decided to buy one. I never had a scope in my life… would a computerized one be better? I just want to admire the stars and planets but I don’t have too much patience (to sit and try to align etc).

My first choice would definitely be the Celestron NexStar 127SLT Mak (especially after your comments!!), but unfortunately I don’t think I can afford to spend 420 dollars right now. So I’ve been looking on Amazon and I am VERY confused because each model offers something else and I can’t seem to have a clear idea of what would be good for me.

Hi, Vittoria. $250 is just enough to get yourself a decent first scope. Out of your list of 5 scopes, let me immediately cross two off of the list: the Celestron 127EQ PowerSeeker and the Celestron 31042 AstroMaster 114 EQ Reflector. These telescopes are of a specific design called a Bird-Jones. What this essentially means is that the manufacturer cut every corner, took every shortcut, to save a dollar here and a quarter there, to give you the cheapest telescope possible. Not inexpensive – cheap. Trust me, I have a Bird-Jones telescope sitting 6 feet away from me as I type this. It is a terrible scope. I won’t even give it away to someone, because it will drive them out of the hobby, never to come back. Yes, it’s that bad.

One of the main problems with the Bird-Jones telescope is that it is practically uncollimatable. Collimation is the act of getting all the optical components of a telescope in perfect alignment with each other. So, on your list, 3 of them are reflecting telescopes, and the other two are refractors. One of the nice things about refractors is that they don’t need to be collimated – they come collimated from the factory, and just stay that way. However, reflectors do need to be collimated. Depending on how you use your telescope, you’ll have to collimate it every few months, or even every few weeks. Take 15 minutes now, go to YouTube, and watch a couple of videos on collimation. While watching, ask yourself 2 questions: 1) Can I do this? Do I have the ability? and 2) Do I want to do this? Because unlike piano tuners, there is no profession “collimator” that comes to your house and does this for you. You have to do it yourself.

Most people don’t have a problem with collimating their telescope; they say it is about as difficult as stringing and tuning a guitar. I am collimation-phobic, because I am slightly dyslexic and easily frustrated when it comes to such things, so I have steered clear of buying any scopes that need to be collimated. So, I have that Celestron NexStar 127 SLT Maksutov you mention, and I have an Orion ST-80 refractor as well. I love both scopes. And neither type – Maks or ‘fracs – need to be collimated.

Assuming that collimation is not a big deal for you, let’s look at the 3 remaining contenders.

The two refractors you’ve picked are both exactly the same – they are clones of each other, with one being painted black, the other silver. Either is a decent 60mm refractor; however, it’s not great. However, the advantage of either of these over the other two is that they’re computerized. It will make finding objects very simple to do. Unfortunately, 60mm of aperture just isn’t going to be able to show you too much, and it won’t be able to show you what it can see very well either. What I mean is, the 60mm lens size doesn’t gather that much light, so many dimmer deep space objects (DSOs) – nebula, galaxies – will simply be out of the grasp of this scope. Also, even those objects that this scope can see – for example, the moon and planets – it can’t see too well, because the magnification limit on this scope is roughly about 120x. That “x” means “times” – 120 times larger than your naked eye can see.

120x sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? But the other scope on the list can see so much more. The problem with getting a 60mm scope is that is very much a beginner’s scope. In less than a year, you will be completely bored with it because it just can’t show you very much. You will desperately want to move onto a bigger, better scope, and you’ll be out $200 or so in the process. Not what you want to do.

That leaves the Orion StarBlast. This is a better-than-decent scope. It has enough aperture at 114mm = 4.5 inches to show you some dimmer DSOs, including not only nebula and galaxies, but open clusters, globular clusters, and planetary nebula. Of course, it’ll also do a good job on the moon and planets. Let’s look at the pluses and minuses of the scope. Orion is selling two versions of the scope – on an equatorial mount, and on a dobsonian mount. The EQ mount is cheaper, but is more difficult to use – it is not intuitive; you sometimes have to “fight” with the scope to get it to point where you want it to. To use the slow motion controls it comes with correctly, you have to align the scope to the star Polaris, something called a polar alignment. Kind of a pain in the behind.

Then there is the dob mount. This is very intuitive and easy to use. You just move it to where you want it to point, and voila! It’s easy. Unfortunately, because this scope is very small, it’s also low to the ground. This means that to use it, you’re going to have to put the scope on top of something – like a table, or a bar stool. Otherwise you’ll be using this scope lying on the ground.

The two different flavors of the scope come with different eyepieces; the ones that come with the EQ version are actually better EPs than the ones that come with the dob version, but don’t work so great on this scope precisely because the scope is so “short”. I would go with the dob version if I were buying it.

With either version, you will want to buy a barlow lens. The EPs that come with either version of the scope “only” get you to about 75x or so. This scope is capable of going to over 200x, so a decent 2x Barlow is in order. That will cost you about $30-40. You can buy one anywhere, as long as it is a 1 1/4″ barlow, and at that price range, it will be – you don’t need to feel constrained to buy an Orion barlow to use on an Orion telescope, or to buy everything from Amazon. (By the way, now is a good time to buy from Amazon, because their normal 30-day return policy is extended through the holiday season to January 31. So if you buy it now, you have until then to return it.) You don’t need to buy a Barlow to use the scope; it will work, at lower powers, without it. But you will want to get one, because you don’t want to be limited to just 75x.

However, let me recommend a couple of other telescopes for you to think about. First is the Astronomers Without Borders One Sky scope:

There is a review from Sky & Telescope on that page that you should read. As the page mentions, this scope is imported by Celestron, so it is not some unknown quality scope from a manufacturer you’ve never heard of. This scope is broadly similar to the Orion 114mm scope, except that this is a 130mm scope – more aperture, dimmer objects, better magnification. Like the 114mm, the AWB is a reflector. It is also a “short, little” scope, meaning that you will have to put it on something to use; otherwise, you’ll be lying on the ground.

As you can see from the pictures, it is a cool design – this is called a truss-tube design. It extends out and folds up again along those tubes. The EPs it comes with are better for the scope than those that came with the Orion. Again, you will want to buy a 2x Barlow lens at some point, but not necessarily immediately. You will also have to take some fabric and make yourself a light baffle to go around the open area that the truss design creates. This is to prevent stray light from entering the scope and ruining your view. And it’s nice that you get a telescope that’s a little bit better for about the same price as the Orion. Like I said, though, you will have to collimate this one, especially since you’re extending it and retracting it every time you use it.

Finally, let me recommend one other scope. This is the Meade Infinity 102mm Alt-Az refractor.

Like I said earlier, you don’t have to collimate a refractor. Also, reflectors have mirrors that require a “cool-down” period when they go from the warm inside to the cold outside to show you their best views. With small reflectors like the ones we’re talking about, that cooldown period is pretty short, 20-30 minutes, depending on the temperature difference. But refractors are ready to go in half that time – by the time you’ve brought it outside and set it up, it’s ready to go. (This doesn’t mean that you can’t observe during that period; it just means that if you do observe, particularly at higher powers, the views won’t be as good as if you had waited.)

The 102mm = 4 inches of aperture is enough to start opening up the sky to those DSOs, and is roughly equivalent to the 114mm Orion scope because the refractor’s aperture is not partially obstructed by a secondary mirror like the reflector’s is. The great thing about this scope though is the EPs. Not only does this one come with three EPs for low, medium, and high powers, but it also comes with a 2x Barlow to get you to those high magnifications necessary for the moon and planets. All that for just $209. Essentially, the scope comes with everything you need/want – you don’t need to buy anything else with it. That’s a good deal.

If you have any questions on what I’ve written, please feel free to ask.

Welcome to the mine field! A telescope is a very difficult thing to purchase if you are a novice. Of the scopes you list, the only one I could suggest with some reservations is the Power Seeker 127EQ. Light gathering is one of the more important qualities of a telescope. So large aperture should score high on your want list.

But with your budget in mind, there are other considerations. A 5″ Newtonian would be roughly equivalent to a 3.5″ refractor in light gathering. Refractors have no central obstructions like Newtonians so they are more efficient in gathering light.

Since you are a novice, I would strongly suggest a refractor with a long focal length. Refractors are rugged and stay in alignment indefinitely if not abused. Newtonians require occasional collimation if they are roughly handled. And, since the tube is open to the air, the mirrors get dirty over time requiring their removal and washed in distilled water. They are like old cars. Great if you like to tinker. Refractors by comparison are forever with next to zero maintenance.

As a novice, the moon and planets will be important and easy to acquire targets due to their brightness. A long focal length refractor offers the best views of them do to their ability to offer high magnifications. Since a refractor has no central obstructions like the secondary mirror in a reflector, refractors offer the best contrast and highest resolution – both desirable in seeing fine lunar and planetary detail. Refractors also excel in observing and “splitting” double stars.

Long f/ratio refractors have minimal chromatic aberration. The faster the f/ratio, the more color error you will see – blue fringing around bright objects. This will mar the image quality if it is excessive. So stick with refractors with f/ratios of f/8 to f/12. F/12 would be considered nearly perfect color correction.

My best suggestion for you would be something like the Orion AstroView 90mm Equatorial Refractor Telescope. It has a 90mm (3.5″) aperture and is an f/10. This would be an excellent performer for a novice to learn about telescopes, learning one’s way around the sky, and offering rewarding views of the moon and planets. It also has a real finder scope, albeit small, but better than those silly red dot laser finders. Since they have no lenses they are no better than the naked eye.

Double stars are great targets for a 3.5″ refractor, showing all the wonderful and subtle colors and hues that often contrast the stellar pair. Albireo, for instance, is an easy binary that splits into two vivid stars – one is a yellow gold and the other an emerald green. And you have hundreds of interesting, beautiful and challenging binary star systems available to you with a 3.5″ refractor. From very widely separated doubles to very close pairs which will challenge the telescope and your vision.

If you find programming a VCR or a DVR challenging, than I would stay away from computerized telescopes. Get a good star chart, planisphere and binoculars to learn your constellations and major stars. That will keep your hands full for a while. Learning to use a computerized telescope in the dark can be a difficult and frustrating affair to learn on top of basic astronomy and getting personal with your telescope.

Learning to star hop to find star clusters and other deep sky objects is challenging, fun and once you learn where an object is, you can impress the hell out of your friends with your skill at finding objects that are seemingly invisible to the naked eye! If you have a computerized telescope that locates objects automatically, you learn nothing about the sky or how to master the use of your telescope. Consider computerized telescopes only after you have learned something about the sky and mastered a basic telescope for a few years.

The Orion AstroView 90mm Equatorial Refractor Telescope sells for $299. A battery operated clock drive is available as a simple to install add-on for probably $35. I would recommend ordering it with the scope. With a clock drive, once you locate an object to observe, the clock drive will slowly track the target for hands free observations. Some minimal polar alignment will be necessary when you set up the scope outside each time.

Their URL address is rather long to type in. Do a copy and paste to snatch the URL and transfer it to your computer’s search engine.

Of course you need books, star chart, a planisphere. Binoculars are highly recommended. A red flastlight to preserve your night vision when viewing charts and oodles of other goodies. And a few more eyepieces as well.

Ugh! Steve! Don’t recommend that PowerSeeker! See what I wrote about Bird-Jones scopes, above. The Bird-Jones design has a “corrector lens” at the bottom of the focuser, sort of like a Barlow lens, sort of like a Mak meniscus, to both double the focal length and correct the spherical primary (as opposed to a parabolic mirror). Because of this lens, they are practically uncollimatable. Here is a list of the various 4 1/2 and 5 inch reflectors, including which Bird-Jones scopes to avoid:

The easiest way to tell if a scope is a dreaded Bird-Jones is to compare the focal length to the tube length in the picture. Every Bird-Jones scope I’ve ever seen has been 1000mm of focal length, yet the picture show a short, stubby tube that can’t be any longer than 20 inches. This is the very definition of a “department store” telescope; they are built this way so that they can put more boxes into less shelf space. That is the hallmark of a lack of quality. Stay away!

I was not aware the Powerseeker was a Bird-Jones. I did not look closely at the specs to compare the math to the tube length (my bad) since I was going to steer her to my real recommendation – the old reliable and rugged refractor.

If you read the body of my text, I provide a good case for recommending an AstroView 3.5″ EQ refractor with an f/10 focal length. It would give very respectable images and magnifications for planetary work, and is the best choice in her price bracket.

So NIX the Powerseeker entirely and go with Orion AstroView refractor as I heartily recommended in my text.

At the URL out of 38 customer reviews 36 are 5 and 4 star ratings.

A couple 5 star reviews excerpted:

Telescope is solid and well crafted. Views of Jupiter and Venus impressive. Cloud bands and moons resolved well in former, phase readily apparent in latter. Some chromatic aberration visible, especially at higher magnification, but not distracting. Generally, a terrific telescope for the price, particularly when one considers everything required is sent in just one box. In summary, a good beginner’s telescope. Hey, you hit a home run with this one Orion!

———-

Right out of the box, I was truly impressed with the quality that Orion had put together in this package. While this is the smallest equatorial mount I own, I was very impressed with its construction and how “tight” it was. The tripod is usually the place where price-point corners are cut. However, while it is aluminum, it is well designed and the metal eyepiece tray greatly helps the overall stability. (I’ll add, however, that I don’t extend the legs in its grab-n-go role.)

The rack-and-pinion focuser is very nicely made entirely of metal, instead of the plastic that often dominates the small refractor market. I found it easy to use and very smooth with none of the usual “play” that one often sees in a rack-and-pinion focuser.

The multi-coated eyepieces provided are good and will serve even the most discerning operator. With a focal ratio of 10, one would expect that a 10mm eyepiece (91x mag) would just about be the limit. However, I’ve “pushed” it a bit and found that the objective lens is of high enough quality to allow me to easily attain 114x with an 8mm eyepiece. I’ve “pushed” even further in good seeing conditions to be able to use a 6mm (152x) with relative ease. I was quite surprised, as “pushing” that far is quite uncommon on any refractor under 120mm.

In summary, I’m more than pleased with the performance of this scope. I highly recommend this as a “first scope” for a serious beginner as well as an excellent grab-and-go scope for the more experienced user.

Woof! A 16 or 18″ dob for your FIRST telescope? You’ve gotta be kidding. That’s an absolutely ENORMOUS scope for your first one. Why are you jumping in with both feet, and your legs, and your body, and your wallet like that? Why not buy something smaller, like even a 6″ or 8″ dob, to get your feet wet first?

Here’s the most important rule: the best telescope is the one you use. A telescope that size weighs a ton. Take a look at this one, only SEVEN GRAND:

My prediction is this. You will get home from a hard day at work or school or with the family. It will be the first clear night in a couple of weeks. You will look over at the corner where your gigantic 16 or 18″ telescope is sitting, sigh, and sit back in your easy chair and not go out observing. Don’t buy such a gargantuan scope for your first scope. That’s just silly.

Jon, you’re absolutely right that it’s silly–you should ask my wife! I’m going to a star party in my city this weekend and will look as everything I can. Still, will a large dob work OK in light polluted situation?

Okay, now that reason has once again prevailed, yes, that is absolutely the best thing to do – go to a star party and look through different sizes of scopes. Take note – literally write down – what you are seeing through each scope. If you stick around until late, the crowds will diminish, and you can ask someone to show you something you saw earlier in a different scope to compare and contrast.

There are literally two schools of thoughts on light-pollution and aperture. One is that larger aperture simply collects more light pollution, too. The other is that the larger aperture will collect more light from the object and allow you to see more.

What I want you to do when you go this weekend is to take particular note of the Andromeda Galaxy, M31, as you look at it through different scopes. How much of it can you see from one aperture to another? That is, if the guys show it to you at all.

Light pollution obviously degrades the sky, what you can see. A telescope of a certain size, say an 8-inch dob, will be able to theoretically show you objects down to 13th magnitude – but that’s only if you and the scope are both in dark black skies, away from cities, away from civilization, away from everything. LP in the city reduces that minimum magnitude to 11th or even 10th.

LP doesn’t effect the moon or planets because they are very bright. It also doesn’t effect open clusters, except that it reduces the number of stars you can see. It doesn’t effect globular clusters much except to make them dimmer against the background sky.

I have a 5-inch Mak and I observe from Manhattan. My overhead limiting magnitude is just barely 3.0. If I take my scope on the subway to a particularly dark location in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which I did a few weeks ago, I can get that down to about 3.5. But I WAS able to see more from there. M13 looked a little brighter. M31 looked a bit more “full” beyond just seeing the core.

But what LP does degrade the most are two types of objects: nebulae and galaxies. These two types of objects are diffuse, with their magnitudes spread out over a large area. M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, is in exactly the same part of the sky as M31. It’s rated at magnitude 5.7, as opposed to M31’s 3.4. But both of those magnitudes are what’s called the integrated magnitude – it’s taking all of their light and concentrating it down to one point – exactly like a star. Because galaxies are large, that light is spread out. I can only see the core of the galaxy from where I observe from, because the LP just washes it out and it fades into the background.

So take particular note of how Andromeda looks through different apertures under LP, and that will be your answer.

Believe it or not, Amazon is a great place to buy a telescope online, especially now. Amazon normally allows you 30 days to return or exchange your purchases, so if anything’s wrong with it, you either get a refund, or you can get a new one. During the “holiday season”, which is right now – November 1 through December 31, Amazon extends this time to January 31. In other words if you buy a scope now, you have until January 31 to decide if you like it or not and return it for a full refund; and you have until January 31 to exchange it if something goes wrong.

I myself was very grateful that Amazon had such a generous return/exchange policy. When I bought my scope from them last year, a Celestron NexStar 127SLT, a 5-inch Maksutov, the motor started going a little crazy after using the scope for 3 weeks. I contacted Amazon by email, and they had a brand new telescope shipped out to me and on my doorstep two days later – even before I had boxed up the old one! Now that’s customer service! (They give you 30 days to return the old one – on their dime, of course.)

Otherwise, there are a number of online astronomy stores where you can buy a scope. It depends on what country you live in, as most stores will only ship within their own country. Assuming that you live in the US, a few of the better stores are Astronomics, Agena, B&H Photo, and Adorama. You can also buy your telescope directly from the retailer in the case of Orion. Good luck!

I do not exaggerate when I say that a telescope is probably one of the most difficult purchases you can make. It takes a lot research to learn enough about optics to make an educated choice. Orion telescopes has a fine lineup of instruments and have been in the telescope business for a number of years. You can check in at http://www.telescope.com.

You can also reach me at my email address: sfranks2@sbcglobal.net if you have any specific questions about telescopes. I was a dealer myself for a number of years and have been in amateur astronomy for about 34 years.

Funny, it seems like I only get notified of your replies once a week or something.

But yes, the second EP I bought after getting the scope in November was the Astronomics version of the Starguider, called the Paradigm, but they are exactly the same EP. I got the 15mm at 103x for $40 used, but it’s a sweet eyepiece. 60 degrees is nice!

And wouldn’tcha know, I just picked up the M&SG a couple of weeks ago. It works great on the moon and Jupiter so far, which is well worth it, because those have gotta be my two favorite objects to observe. But there’s no way it can do anything in the face of my overwhelming Manhattan LP. I wrote all about it on my blog: jgroub.wordpress.com

I love the 60 degree wide field views of the Dual EDs. Spacious enough coming up from my old Brandons, orthopedics and Konigs. Not only excellent for DSOs, but for planetary as well. The eye lens if extremely large and the same size across the whole set. Remarkable.

I can feel your pain regarding your light pollution dilemma. I do most of my observing in the parking lot of my apartment complex. I am surrounded by 5 2-story apartment buildings, all with security lights. I am limited to perhaps third or fourth magnitude star depending on where I set up. My 6″ GOTO refractor, however, does a remarkable job on DSOs. My sky is sky black. I remember downtown Chicago’s sky years ago was brown with only the Moon and maybe Jupiter being visible! Is that your situation? Brown sky, gray or is it still black?

Light polluted skies do not really affect the bright Moon and planet observations. Experienced planetary observers report the best views of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars are at twilight and sunrise! But it can really tear it for DSOs.

The Baader Moon & Sky Glow filter (Neodymium filter) should work well against old, strong yellow sodium lamps. The Neodymium is, however, also great for enhancing the contrast on planets so if find it does not work against your light situation, well keep it for looking at the planets.

It is possible your are up against more modern “broadband” street lights – they are more white than the yellow sodium. I would investigate an aggressive broadband LPR filter. You may want to start your research with Orion 5660 1.25-Inch SkyGlow Broadband Eyepiece Filter. Study reviews and look into Cloudy Nights forums for a large experienced group of observers. Post your problem there. Study reviews and look into Cloudy Nights forums for a large experienced group of observers. Post your problem there:

I found a fellow who shares your problems who lives in upper Manhattan. He did not find this filter effective enough, so poke around a bit for other broadband filters.

“Maybe I expected too much, living in light-polluted upper Manhattan, but this filter didn’t seem to do much, as opposed to the “swan band” filter I purchased which makes certain nebulae like M-42 pop right out of the eyepiece at you!”

Limicon makes a Swan fand filter, but it seems to be dedicated to comets and my be much too selective to consider.

Oh, I agree, the M&SG has earned a place in my eyepiece case for making the Great Red Spot POP! That’s worth it all by itself. Saturn will be rising early enough in a very few weeks, and I can’t wait to see what it’ll do there.

My skies are a lovely shade of gray. I observe off of my apartment building’s roof, so I’m literally above a lot of the light sources, so they’re not shining in my face. However, the other apartment buildings right near mine give off plenty of LP themselves, so it just never gets dark. Then I’ve got the lights of Times Square about 2 miles away, casting a continuous light beam into the sky. It’s rough, I tell ya.

And yes, I’ve been an active member at Cloudy Nights for almost a year now. Very erudite, although threads seem to descend into an all too scholarly and minutia-filled discussion very quickly.

As for a more potent LP filter, I already have the Orion Ultrablock. However, that one is a little too strong – it dims everything, I would guess it saps about half a magnitude or so. Yes, it works on M42 very nicely, and lets me see more of the structure. I haven’t tried it out on other nebulas, like the ones in Sagittarius and such, because we’re still just crawling our way out of winter over here. Regardless of what the calendar says, today was actually the first day of spring: 65 degrees!

But other than M42, nebulas have never been my thing. Too disappointing compared to the pictures. At least open clusters and globs look exactly like what they’re supposed to look like, y’know?

Maksutov-Cassegrain Cons
More expensive than Newtonians for the same aperture.
Narrow field of view in Maksutov design.
Thick corrector lens means long cool down time.
Thick corrector lens make Maks heavy in large apertures.
Corrector lens cost becomes prohibitive in commercially made Maks above 7″.

Maksutov-Cassegrains are best for:
Observing the Moon, planets, double stars, and deep-sky objects.
Observers with a larger budget who still want aperture but who favor portability.

The pro and cons of the Maksutov-Cassegrain could fill the pages of the next “best seller” book! But put simply, Maks are very similar to the Schmidt-Cassegrains (SCT) in that they have a spherical mirror to collect light, and a curved lens up front to correct for aberrations. But the corrector lens (or meniscus lens) on a Mak has a simple, spherical curve which is easy to manufacture. Its secondary mirror is simply a thin layer of aluminum deposited on the back of the lens so there is nothing to adjust as on a SCT or Newtonian. Because of this, they are rugged and robust animals that are recommended in harsh environments like industrial and military applications. My neighbor’s took a tumble one day onto the living room rug. We tested it later that night and its alignment was unchanged! It could have been an expensive disaster with a SCT, or a trip to a work bench with a Newtonian.

The SCT is seen more of an all-rounder, but I would bet that is due to the large manufacturers having more SCT’s than Mak-Casses in their sales lineups and have more accessories available for it. But, it is absolutely possible to do the same things with a Mak-Cass, you just have to look a little harder for the accessory kit to do it.

The supposed downside of the Mak? To keep aberrations small, Maks are made with a long focal ratio – typically f/12 to f/15. That means you get a higher magnification with a particular eyepiece and a narrower field of view than with an f/10 SCT or f/6 Newtonian. So Maks aren’t great if you want wide, sweeping views of the Milky Way. They are much better for objects that require high magnification like planets, the Moon, double stars, globular clusters, and planetary nebulae.

Maks are also great for urban observers for two reasons. They are compact and easy to transport. And the higher magnification will darken the washed out (polluted) city skies, and bring out more contrast in a deep-sky object.

Many people say that certain scopes are better for planetary than Deep Sky Objects (DSO’s), this is mostly due to some designs such as classical refractors, or Maksutovs having such a long focal length, limiting it’s ability to provide a really low power, wide field-of-view. But actually the number of large DSOs that do not fit into the field-of-view of a Mak is really just a handful. Most DSOs will fit very nicely into the field-of-view of long f/ratio of refractors, SCTs and Maks with plenty of room to spare!

The focal length vs field-of-view argument is dubious really, especially when you consider that a small Mak can have a similar focal length to a large Dobsonian anyway, and even a larger field-of-view than a really BIG Dobsonian once you add a focal reducer into the equation.

It is more about the power-per-inch of aperture that you can get out of a particular telescope that really counts. There are four very general rules of thumb for a given target type:

Open clusters and general sky-sweeping. 4-8 power per-inch-of-aperture.
Galaxies, nebulae and globular clusters. 8-16 power per-inch-of-aperture.
Lunar and planetary observing. 16-32 power per-inch-of-aperture.
Double stars. 32-64 power per-inch-of-aperture.

The lowest power on a Mak generally starts about halfway into category 8-16x, and that can be a problem. For general sweeping across the sky and appreciating the beauty of the Milky Way, a Mak is not, perhaps, the scope of choice. But I’d rather have high powers at the cost of extremely low powers any day. That is why god made binoculars! The fact of the matter is, for examining a specific object such as a medium nebulae or globular cluster, a Mak is as good as anything else really. I do just fine with my Unitron 4″ f/15 refractor with 32mm to 8mm at 46x to 187x for DSOs.

Though great at doing planetary video photography or CCD imaging, Maks are not really suited for DSO imaging due to excessively long exposure times at f/15.

A focal reducer does exactly what it says it does. It reduces the focal length of the Mak, therefore, widening the field-of-view. They are extremely popular with astrophotographers as they make the Mak faster, shortening the required exposure time. Not to mention allowing larger DSOs to be imaged. You will not need any adapters to use the Antares 0.5 focal reducer as it screws into the back of an eyepiece like a filter does.

Most Maks have a different visual back than Schmidt-Cass telescopes. Depending on the focal reducer that you buy, you may need an adapter. If you do, here is one listed below:

Very well said. I agree completely and couldn’t have said it better myself.

I have found what I think is an excellent solution to the wide-field view “problem” with my own NexStar 127 Mak. Note the air quotes, because it isn’t much of a problem to begin with. With a standard 32mm Plossl, I get about 1.04 degrees true field of view, and as you mentioned there are only about a dozen objects that are larger than that:

I might be missing a couple. Most of these are galaxies and nebula that I wouldn’t be able to see or appreciate from my incredibly light- polluted skies here in Manhattan anyway. So really, I’m only missing out on about 3 objects: M45, M44, and M7 Even then, even without a solution, you can still observe these objects with a Mak; you just observe them 3/4 or 2/3 at a time.

However, my solution is that I have strapped an ST-80 refractor to the Mak. I get gorgeous 4-degree wide views at 12x, and even 2-degrees views at 40x with a Luminos 10mm 82-degree AFOV eyepiece I picked up new in a recent sale at Amazon for just $62. I can sweep around the galaxy as much as I like with that. For me, the two scopes compliment each other perfectly.

If you are looking for eyepieces, I can highly recommend the Agena Starguider Dual ED oculars. The all have an incredible 60 degree field on the entire set. All have a huge eye lens. They have 5 or 6 lenses in up to 4 groups so they do not rob you of light. Beautiful fit and build for just $65 when not on sale.

My review of the Agena:

I spent a good amount of time and research looking for a new, high quality set of eyepieces to retire my older sets. I wanted a first-class, general purpose eyepiece that had a wide field for DSO and high contrast for planetary and binary stars. A difficult demand to fill at any price. I was prepared to spent more than twice the price for my final set.

Testing the Agena Dual ED 8mm against an 8mm brass Brandon and 7mm Parks under the severest binary star tests with a 6″ refractor, the Agena proved to be of equal performance with the bonus of a much greater field of view. The field is absolutely flat and well corrected. The optical quality of the Agena met all my observational requirements.

This eyepiece immediately impressed me with its appearance, weight and design. Its “out of the box” quality promised good things to come and did not fail.

I am a serious observer of 35 years, a hard core refractor owner and demand the best in optics. The Agena Dual ED is a “dark horse” ocular that deserves high praise. You will NOT regret owning the Agena Dual ED eyepieces.

Also look into the Baader Moon & Sky Glow filter. It will help filter out artificial light and boost the image contrast and color for planetary and lunar. Baader is Carl Zeiss’ amateur astronomical equipment sales. It is an excellent product.

Meade was a great company to do business with in the old days, but no so much any more. I’d stay with Celestron. I was a dealer for both in the 90s.

I just helped my neighbor buy the “perfect” first scope. I used to be a dealer in the 90s. I would strongly suggest the Celestron Nexstar 127SLT Maksutov-Cassegrain.

I have spent a fair amount of time looking thru it at globulars, planets, Moon, double stars, etc.
Its has great optics. Better than a Schmidt-Cass. I am a die-hard refractor man, so I am VERY hard to please when it comes to optics.

This is a very practical little “grab&go” scope with good optics and will do a good job with globulars, planetary and doubles. Galaxies and nebula are more in the realm of the 12″ dobs. No scope will do everything well. Your portability issues are your greatest limitation.

The GOTO works well, especially in light polluted skies. I’d upgrade the scope with a 7×50 finder though. These laser dots don’t work if you cannot see the object with the naked eye. Orion sells a split dovetail mount that will allow you to mount the finder scope and laser side by side. They work very well together. $45 for the split dovetail and $75 for the right angle finder.

Thank you for recommending this scope! I just bought it a month or so ago, and have been loving it. And yeah, I completely agree about the views this little baby provides – jaw-dropping. Really excellent. And the Goto is dead-on accurate. Love it!

I am currently involved in a battle royale over this scope over at Cloudy Nights, in the beginner’s forum, where I have asked “Why do Maks have such a bad rep?” I’d love for you to drop by and share your views there – the more the merrier.

Perhaps advising me which particular thread and page would help me. Below a few posts down are some thoughts about the Mak that may help you defend the Mak’s reputation.

I am a hard core refractor man. In fact I just purchased a Celestron 6″ AVX refractor. But I must say that after several observing session with my neighbor, I have been impressed with his Mak for planetary and binary star work. It is not as good as my 4″ Unitron f/15, but it is a close second. His Mak does exceptionally well on DSOs. I credit that to its long f/ratio. His skies are black and contrasty for DSOs. Fast Newtonians are not as dark. I will take a long f/ration instrument any day!

I haven’t owned a telescope for a very long time and am looking to get one again. I’m looking to view planets and distant galaxies as well. I’m more or less looking around the $600-800 price range as my max. I also am a graduate student who lives in an apartment, thus would like one that is not inherently difficult to move around or transport when I move.

I have looked around and found a couple and wanted to find out if they are good choices, or if there would be any that are better? Any advice would be very much appreciated!
Orion StarSeeker III 127 mm Mark-Cass
Advanced Celestron 127 mm Cassegrain
Celestron NexStar 127SLT
Celestron NExStar 5SE

All of those scopes are about the same aperture and similar design, aside from the reflector. So, part of it would probably just be personal preference. My best advice is always to find other astronomers and go to a star party to look through as many scopes as you can. This will inform you best on what will work for you.

Thanks for this informative post. One thing you don’t address is vintage telescopes. We purchased at auction a complete, in the (wooden) box, 1932 Baush and Lomb 80mm observation scope ($275). It came with the manual and price tag — $350 in depression-era dollars. We haven’t had a chance to really put it to the test but it seems incredibly well machined. Have advances in telescope manufacture outpaced vintage scopes or is this one of those areas where vintage = quality?

It’s hard to say without knowing the specific instrument of course. Developments in the past couple decades have included advanced optical coatings and apochromatic lens arrangements (which avoid color fringing) that weren’t available back then. Unless you do astro-imaging or detailed planetary observing though, you probably won’t notice. Really, it’s all about enjoyment, so I hope you enjoy the scope!

I’m interested in astrophotography and I’m planning to buy lenses and other accessories later.

Both have an equatorial mount and I understand that is important for astrophotography. There are not a lot difference in price, is approximately the same.
The differences are related to aperture, focal ratio and, of course, the kind of telescope(Schmidt-Cassegrain vs Newtonian).
Is convenient to choose newtonian since this telescope have larger aperture?
Which one would you recommend?
Thank you in advance for your response.

Hi Luis,
I would recommend the Advance VX mount that’s include with both of those telescopes, but I have reservations about recommending either of those telescopes if your primary goal is astrophotography. To understand why, have a look at my review of the AT6RC. Both the SCT and Newtonian exhibit an artifact called coma, which basically means you see little comet trails on the stars at the edge of the field of view. (I’ll note that there are reducers and coma correctors available as a separate purchase.) With the Newtonian specifically, be sure to check that that telescope will actualy come to focus with a camera. Many Newtonians are designed exclusively for visual, and the focusers don’t have enough travel for use with a camera, Many companies sell special imaging Newtonians that have focusers designed for use with cameras.

Another consideration is long focal lengths mean you need to be that much more accurate with tracking the sky. While I actually recommend getting started without an auto-guider (learning an EQ mount by itself is complex enough to start), you’ll find you want to upgrade to an auto-guider sooner with a longer focal length telescope.

So what telescope would I recommend? I’d actually look for a smaller refractor like the Orion Short Tube 80, or if you want something higher quality, look for an Apochromatic refractor about that same size from Stellarvue, Meade, Orion, or others. Yes, these refractors are much smaller aperture (about 1/3rd the area compared to the 6″ SCT) but they are also much shorter focal length, which means you capture a larger area of the sky, and can tolerate a little more inaccuracy in tracking. For capturing the whole of the Orion Nebula for example, you need a shorter focal length telescope.

That said, if your primary target is the planets or very small galaxies (small as in angular diameter) then you do want a longer focal length. For planetary imaging, precise tracking isn’t as important since the exposures are very short. Distant galaxies though require long exposures, and very precise tracking. In these cases, the SCT or a scope like the AT6RC can be a good choice. As with everything else, you also need to consider what you want to invest in this hobby, and don’t forget all the little extras like the camera adaptor, battery pack to power the telescope, field flattener or coma corrector, dew shield, etc.

Im just curious, you say the Advanced VX 6″ Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope isn’t for doing astrophotography. Telescopes(.)com is having a cell with one of those and a Skyris 618C using the Sony ICX618AQA CCD Sensor. Will that combo not work? I do not own a telescope, but am really wanting to get something along those lines. I don’t really have any guidance other than looking at reviews and what not. But I want a scope that can see pretty far and get good pics of the neubla, etc… Any help appriciated

The AVX does work for astrophotography – after all, I’ve been using the mount it replaced, the CG5 for two years. However, they have the same limitations in terms of accurate guiding when trying to do long exposures (say, more than a minute). That said, in this price category, the AVX is still a fine mount to start exploring astrophotography with.

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